The Bluff marks the end of the bay. No ice forms beyond. Thus the waves swept in with unbroken power, and were fast reducing the shore cakes to a mass of fragments. Paul was cut off from the shore by thirty yards of heaving ice. No bit of it would bear his weight; nor, so fine had it been ground, could he leap from place to place as he had done before.
"'Tis sprawl I must," he thought.
The passage was no new problem. He had been in such case more than once upon his return from the offshore seal-hunt. Many fragments would together bear him up, where few would sink beneath him. He lay flat on his stomach, and, with the gaff to help support him, crawled out from the solid place, dragging the bag. His body went up and down with the ice. Now an arm was thrust through, again a leg went under water.
Progress was fearfully slow. Inch by inch he gained on the shore—crawling—crawling steadily. All the while he feared that the great pans would drift out and leave the fragments room to disperse. Once he had to spread wide his arms and legs and pause until the ice was packed closer.
"Two yards more—only two yards more!" he could say at last.
Once on the road to Ruddy Cove, which he well knew, his spirits rose; and with a cheery mood came new strength. It was a rough road, up hill and down again, through deep snowdrifts and over slippery rocks. Night fell; but there was light enough to show the way, save in the deeper valleys, and there he had to struggle along as best he might.
Step after step, hill after hill, thicket after thicket: cheerfully he trudged on; for the mail-bag was safe on his back, and Ruddy Cove was but three miles distant. Three was reduced to two, two to one, one to the last hill.
From the crest of Ruddy Rock he could look down on the lights of the harbour—yellow lights, lying in the shadows of the valley. There was a light in the post-office. They were waiting for him there—waiting for their letters—waiting to send the mail on to the north. In a few minutes he could say that Her Majesty's mail had been brought safe to Ruddy Cove.