His eye sought the girl's. In hers he read understanding and assent. Of one mind, they struck out with all their strength. The comber overtook them, clasped them to its bosom, tossed them high upon its great glassy shoulder. They fought madly to retain that place, and to such purpose that they rode it over a dozen yards before it crashed upon the beach, annihilating itself in a furious welter of creaming waters. Whitaker felt land beneath his feet....
The rest was like the crisis of a nightmare drawn out to the limit of human endurance. Conscious thought ceased: terror and panic and the blind instinct of self-preservation—these alone remained. The undertow tore at Whitaker's legs as with a hundred murderous hands. He fought his way forward a few paces—or yard or two—only to be overwhelmed, ground down into the gravel. He rose through some superhuman effort and lunged on, like a blind, hunted thing.... He came out of it eventually to find himself well up on the beach, out of the reach of the waves. But the very earth seemed to billow about him, and he could hardly keep his feet. A numbing faintness with a painful retching at once assailed him. He was but vaguely aware of the woman reeling not far from him, but saved....
Later he found that something of the worst effects had worn away. His scattered wits were reëstablishing intercommunication. The earth was once more passably firm beneath him. He was leaning against the careened hulk of a dismantled cat-boat with a gaping rent in its side. At a little distance the woman was sitting in the sands, bosom and shoulders heaving convulsively, damp, matted hair veiling her like a curtain of sunlit seaweed.
He moved with painful effort toward her. She turned up to him her pitiful, writhen face, white as parchment.
"Are you—hurt?" he managed to ask. "I mean—injured?"
She moved her head from side to side, as if she could not speak for panting.
"I'm—glad," he said dully. "You stay—here.... I'll go get help."
He raised his eyes, peering inland.
Back of the beach the land rose in long, sweeping hillocks, treeless but green. His curiously befogged vision made out a number of shapes that resembled dwellings.
"Go ... get ... help ..." he repeated thickly.