Part 28 (1/2)

”Well, maybe, you aren't far wrong,” replied the other, ”we've sc.r.a.ped through so far and maybe we'll sc.r.a.pe through to the end. My main wish is to have a plank under foot again, there ain't no give and take in land, I'm never surefooted on land, there's no lift in it. I reckon I'm like one of them sea chickens not used to solid stuff underfoot. D'you know what one of them gulls does first thing he lands on board a s.h.i.+p by chance?”

”No.”

”He gets sick as a dog.”

The cliff had an echo which, when it was not answering some loud boost of the sea managed to return words, and between the smack of two waves the girl heard it remark something about a dog. But the echo of the cliff soon had its mouth too full to hold words. The sea now nearly at full flood was bringing big waves along with it. In the gloom they could see the racing grey ghosts, and here, on account of the curve, there was little rhythm in the sound of it that came like the continuous thunder of big drums. At their feet, like the licking vicious tongue of the roaring monster, came the continuous gash-gash of waves was.h.i.+ng up and falling back.

The girl sat with the blanket around her leaning close up against the man. She felt as a person feels standing before the cage of a tiger uncertain as to the strength of the bars, sometimes a puff of wind brought a touch of spray on her face, whilst the continuous m.u.f.fled thunder of the coast leagues seemed like the bastions of the whole world at war with the sea.

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

”I'm not exactly afraid,” she replied. ”It's just that everything seems so big--and those cliffs, now, even when they are hidden, they make one know 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 were looking at a chap. It's a rotten coast, but it's near high water now and the tide will soon be drawing out.”

This cheered her.

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

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

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

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

He laughed as though over some pleasant reminiscence. ”Dozens.” Then he began to recall chaps he had seen killed, falling from aloft and otherwise. 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 just as terriers pull an old shoe.

Then he wandered off to a bar scene where a dago--it was at Nagasaki--had been drinking rice rum and knifed a man, a regular prosy old sailor's yarn, with ”I says to him,” and ”he says to me” at every turn.

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

CHAPTER XXIX

THE SUMMIT

”I will break thee.” Across Kerguelen those words are written to be read by the soul of man. The rock, the rain, the wind and the sea, these, as instruments, would surely be sufficient for the carrying out of the threat; but the soul of man is strong, hence the spirit of Kerguelen has called to its a.s.sistance Fog.

Since landing on the great beach the girl had seen the islands fog-wreathed several times but the beach itself had only once been attacked.

When she awoke on the rock plateau the first word of Raft to her was ”fog.”

They had slept as the dead sleep for nine hours and Raft had awoken with the girl's head still on his chest and feeling as though he were packed in damp cotton wool. It was after sun up and the fog was so dense that the edge of the plateau was only just visible. Through the fog came the breaking of the waves; the tide was coming in again.

Raft had lit his pipe and the girl, stiff from lying, rose up and stamped about to warm herself. Neither of them spoke a word in the way of grumbling.

The plateau was about twenty yards in length and by drawing off five yards or so one could have a dressing-room screened with a fog veil, so the fog was not an unmixed evil.

Then they breakfasted, listening to the slas.h.i.+ng of the water just below and counting the time till the out-going sea would let them loose.