In the Roar of the Sea

by S. Baring-Gould

Whither had she got!

The way was no longer easy—one step before another—there was a break of continuity in the path, if path the track could be called.

Judith stood still, and put forward her foot to test the rock in front. There was no place where it could rest. Had she, bewildered by that gull, diverged from the track? It would be well to retreat a few steps. She endeavored to do this, and found that she encountered a difficulty in finding the place where she had just planted her foot.

It was but too certain that she was off the track line. How to recover it she knew not. With the utmost difficulty she did reach a point in her rear where she could stand, clinging to the rock; but she clung now with both hands. There was no tuft of samphire to brush her face as she descended. She must have got wrong before she touched that. But where was the samphire? She cautiously felt along the surface of the crag in quest of it, but could not find it. There was, however, a little above her shoulder, a something that felt like a ledge, and which might be the track. If she had incautiously crept forward at a level without ascending rapidly enough, she was probably below the track. Could she climb to this point—climb up the bare rock, with sheer precipice below her? And, supposing that the shelf she felt with her hand were not the track, could she descend again to the place where she had been?

Her brain spun. She lost all notion as to where she might be—perhaps she was below the path, perhaps she was above it. She could not tell. She stood with arms extended, clinging to the rock, and her heart beat in bounds against the flinty surface. The clasp of her cloak was pressing on her throat, and strangling her. The wind had caught the garment, and was playing with the folds, carrying it out and flapping it behind her over the gulf. It was irksome; it was a danger to her. She cautiously slid one hand to her neck, unhasped the mantle, and it was snatched from her shoulders and carried away. She was lighter without it, could move with greater facility; cold she was not, wet she might become, but what mattered that if she could reach the top of the cliff?

Not only on her own account was Judith alarmed. She had undertaken a commission. She had promised to bear a message to her aunt from Coppinger that concerned the safety of his men. What the signal meant she did not know, but suspected that it conveyed a message of danger.

She placed both her hands on the ledge, and felt with her knee for some point on which to rest it, to assist her in lifting herself from where she stood to the higher elevation. There was a small projection, and after a moment’s hesitation she drew her foot from the shelf whereon it had rested and leaned the left knee on this hunch. Then she clung with both hands, and with them and her knee endeavored to heave herself up about four feet, that is, to the height of her shoulders. A convulsive quiver seized on her muscles. She was sustained by a knee and her hands only. If they gave way she could not trust to recover her previous lodgement place. One desperate strain, and she was on the ledge, on both knees, and was feeling with her hands to ascertain if she had found the track. Her fingers touched thrift and passed over turf. She had not reached what she sought. She was probably farther from it than before. As all her members were quivering after the effort, she seated herself on the shelf she had reached, leaned back against the wet rock, and waited till her racing pulses had recovered evenness of flow, and her muscles had overcome the first effects of their tension.

Her position was desperate. Rain and perspiration mingled dripped from her brow, ran over and blinded her eyes. Her breath came in sobs between her parted lips. Her ears were full of the booming of the surge far below, and the scarcely less noisy throb of her blood in her pulses.

When she had started on her adventurous expedition she had seen some stars that had twinkled down on her, and had appeared to encourage her. Now, not a star was visible, only, far off on the sea, a wan light that fell through a rent in the black canopy over an angry deep. Beyond that all was darkness, between her and that all was darkness.

As she recovered her self-possession, with the abatement of the tumult in her blood she was able to review her position, and calculate her chances of escape from it.