Nor could the lad hear anything beyond the crash of the breakers and splash of the eddying water, which sometimes washed up to his feet, as he stood on the boulder gazing out vainly to sea, the sound of the breaking billows being mingled with the shriek of the wind as it whistled by overhead.
Nothing but the tumult of the sea, stirred into frenzy by the storm-blast of angry Aeolus!
After a time, Eric suddenly recollected that his brother could not move far from the hut and must be wondering what had become of him; and, recognising as well the fact that he was powerless alone to do anything where he was, even if a ship should be in danger, he returned towards the cottage to rejoin Fritz, his path up the valley being lit up quite clearly by the expiring bonfire, which still flamed out every now and then, as the wind fanned it in its mad rush up the gorge, stirring out the embers into an occasional flash of brilliancy.
Fritz, usually so calm, was in a terribly anxious state when his brother reached him.
“Well, have you seen anything?” he asked impatiently.
“No,” said Eric sorrowfully. “There’s nothing to be seen.”
“But you heard another cannon, did you not?”
“Oh yes, and it seemed closer in.”
“So I thought, too,” said the other, whom the sound of the heavy guns, from his old experience in war, appeared to affect like a stimulant. “Can’t we do anything? It is terrible to stand idly here and allow our fellow-creatures to perish, without trying to save them!”
“What could we do?” asked Eric helplessly, all the buoyancy gone out of him. He seemed to be quite another lad.