The Beach of Dreams: A Romance

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  NIGHT

  Towards dark the incoming tide began to hit the cliff base. Raft hadtaken the things from the bundle and had made her wrap herself in theblanket. "You ain't used to the weather like me," said he, "and this isnothing to bother about. Lucky it's not blowing. Lucky we made thisshelf. Hark at that!"

  The first full blow of a wave hit the basalt below them with aheart-sickening thud; then miles of stricken cliff began to boom. Theterrific corridor was no more, and between them and the Lizard point somany miles away to the east and the point of safety miles away to thewest, there was nothing but cliff washed by sea.

  "A rotten coast," said Raft as they listened. "Only for this shelf we'dbe down there."

  "We'd have been flung against the cliff and beaten to pieces," said she.

  "That's so," said Raft.

  "When we get free from this," she said, "let us keep inland. I don'tmind climbing over rocks, anything is better than the coast, under thesecliffs."

  "We've got to keep pretty close to the cliffs, all the same, to strikethat bay," he replied, "hope it's there."

  "It is there," said she. "I feel--I know it is there and that we willfind a ship. We are being looked after."

  "Which way?"

  "We are being led. You remember when you saved me from dying in thatcave, well, you were making for the bay then. If you had not found meyou would have kept on and you would have crossed that plain where thebog places are, it looked the easiest way."

  "That's so," said Raft.

  "Bompard was swallowed up there. You would have been swallowed up too;you were led to find me for both our sakes. Then, to-day, I could havegone no further only for you, and you remember how we thought of goingback? This ledge was here waiting for us. It tells us we have to go onand be brave and everything will come right."

  "Well, maybe, you aren't far wrong," replied the other, "we've scrapedthrough so far and maybe we'll scrape through to the end. My main wishis to have a plank under foot again, there ain't no give and take inland, I'm never surefooted on land, there's no lift in it. I reckon I'mlike one of them sea chickens not used to solid stuff underfoot. D'youknow what one of them gulls does first thing he lands on board a ship bychance?"

  "No."

  "He gets sick as a dog."

  The cliff had an echo which, when it was not answering some loud boostof the sea managed to return words, and between the smack of two wavesthe girl heard it remark something about a dog. But the echo of thecliff soon had its mouth too full to hold words. The sea now nearly atfull flood was bringing big waves along with it. In the gloom they couldsee the racing grey ghosts, and here, on account of the curve, there waslittle rhythm in the sound of it that came like the continuous thunderof big drums. At their feet, like the licking vicious tongue of theroaring monster, came the continuous gash-gash of waves washing up andfalling back.

  The girl sat with the blanket around her leaning close up against theman. She felt as a person feels standing before the cage of a tigeruncertain as to the strength of the bars, sometimes a puff of windbrought a touch of spray on her face, whilst the continuous muffledthunder of the coast leagues seemed like the bastions of the whole worldat war with the sea.

  "There's no call to be afraid," said Raft. He seemed, by some specialfaculty, to be able to divine her feelings.

  "I'm not exactly afraid," she replied. "It's just that everything seemsso big--and those cliffs, now, even when they are hidden, they make oneknow they are there, they seem wicked and alive, yet not able to move."

  "You've hit it," said he, "they're for all the world as if they werelooking at a chap. It's a rotten coast, but it's near high water now andthe tide will soon be drawing out."

  This cheered her.

  Then the whale birds began to cry and flit about. The whale birds areblind by daylight and their voices scarcely ever heard, they are theowls of the sea.

  The girl talked about them for something to say, then she fell towondering why on a beach like this there were no sea elephants. Raftexplained "sea cows" would never come to a washed beach like this, therewere no dry rocks for them to "hang about" on.

  He had lit his pipe with the tinder box and the smell of the tobaccocame good and comforting, the slap and dash of the waves sounded lessvicious, too, as though the sea had done its worst to get at them andwas foiled.

  Then she said, apropos of nothing but the last of her wanderingthoughts: "Have you ever seen a man killed?"

  He laughed as though over some pleasant reminiscence. "Dozens." Then hebegan to recall chaps he had seen killed, falling from aloft andotherwise. He had seen one hit the sea such a smack it split him open,and he had seen a chap under water being pulled to pieces by sharks justas terriers pull an old shoe.

  Then he wandered off to a bar scene where a dago--it was atNagasaki--had been drinking rice rum and knifed a man, a regular prosyold sailor's yarn, with "I says to him," and "he says to me" at everyturn.

  Then he found that she was leaning more heavily against him and wasasleep. He put his pipe beside him and slipped an arm round her. Then,as though sleep were infectious, down he sank still holding her andthere they lay. He snoring gently and she with her head pillowed on hischest.