Part 27 (2/2)
At a dizzy height above her cormorants had their nests, they seemed angry about something as they clanged and flew, shooting out into the sky and wheeling back again in an aimless manner. Before her the grey sea crawled, coming, now, steadily sh.o.r.eward.
The tide seemed coming in faster than usual. She knew that this could not be so and that Raft was too wise to allow himself to be cut off, all the same a smouldering anxiety fed on her heart as she watched the tiny figure now approaching the out-jutting shoulder of cliff. Then it disappeared.
He had promised to keep in sight.
Evidently that was impossible if he wanted to get a view of what lay beyond.
A minute pa.s.sed, two, three--then the figure reappeared and her heart that had lain still sprang to life again.
As he drew closer she saw him stoop and pick up something, then he came right up to the cliff face, paused a minute and continued his way towards her, walking more slowly now and carrying the thing in his hands.
It was a big sh.e.l.l shaped like an abalone. He had filled it with water from a little torrent running from the cliff and when he reached her he held it up to show.
”We're all right,” cried he, ”there's only four or five miles of cliff beyond the point, then it breaks away down to the beach. We'll be able to get clear of this to-morrow.”
She came down the basalt steps and took the sh.e.l.l from him. He had washed it in the torrent so that the water had no taint of salt. Then, carrying it carefully she got it to the plateau where he followed her.
CHAPTER XXVIII
NIGHT
Towards dark the incoming tide began to hit the cliff base. Raft had taken the things from the bundle and had made her wrap herself in the blanket. ”You ain't used to the weather like me,” said he, ”and this is nothing to bother about. Lucky it's not blowing. Lucky we made this shelf. Hark at that!”
The first full blow of a wave hit the basalt below them with a heart-sickening thud; then miles of stricken cliff began to boom. The terrific corridor was no more, and between them and the Lizard point so many miles away to the east and the point of safety miles away to the west, there was nothing but cliff washed by sea.
”A rotten coast,” said Raft as they listened. ”Only for this shelf we'd be 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't mind climbing over rocks, anything is better than the coast, under these cliffs.”
”We've got to keep pretty close to the cliffs, all the same, to strike that bay,” he replied, ”hope it's there.”
”It is there,” said she. ”I feel--I know it is there and that we will find a s.h.i.+p. We are being looked after.”
”Which way?”
”We are being led. You remember when you saved me from dying in that cave, well, you were making for the bay then. If you had not found me you would have kept on and you would have crossed that plain where the bog 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 have gone no further only for you, and you remember how we thought of going back? This ledge was here waiting for us. It tells us we have to go on and be brave and everything will come right.”
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