Part 11 (1/2)
And standing there motionless he heard a voice calling through the quiet denseness of the fog. A voice coming from a distance and m.u.f.fled by the mist. He started. It was her voice calling to him from the narrow pathway that wound up the chalk cliffs to the back of his shanty.
”Mister--oh, Mister.”
He reached his hand out in front of him trying to break the saturating cover of the fog. He went stumbling unseeingly toward the rear of the house.
”Mister--oh, Mister.”
The rear of the shanty. His feet sank down into the turned soil of the truck garden. He stood still.
”Here.”
”Mister;” the voice of her was nearer. ”Where are--you--?”
He could not see in front of him. He felt that she was close.
”Here;--little girl.”
He saw the faint outline of her shadow then through the obliterating denseness of the mist.
”Some fog; ain't it, Mister?”
”Stay where--you are. There's the precipice.”
”I ain't afraid of no precipice.”
”Stay--where--you--are!”
He could hear the dripping of the mist over the window ledges. And then he thought he heard, smothered by the weight of the fog, the pounding of the sea.
”You surprised to see me? But you ain't able to see me. Are you?”
”No.”
”You ain't surprised?”
Down there at the base of the chalk cliffs the sea was still; waiting.
”You--shouldn't--have--come.”
”Why--you don't mean;--you ain't trying to tell me;--you--don't--want--me--here?”
Great beads of moisture trickled down across his eyes.
”Little girl--; I just said you shouldn't have come. Not up here in this kind of weather.”
”Oh, the weather!” She laughed. ”I ain't the one to mind the weather, Mister.”
Again he reached his hand out in front of him in an effort to rend the suffocating thickness of the fog. His fingers touched her arm and closed over it. From below him came the repeated warning roar of the waves.
”Can you find your way home--by yourself--little girl?”