The Beach of Dreams Part 27

She felt as a tiny tired child feels when caught up and carried by its mother, and carrying her so he strode on, cursing himself for not having carried her before.

It was a three-mile journey to that roughness on the cliff and as he drew near he saw that they were saved, at least for the time.

The rock broke here in ledges like steps and twenty feet up and well beyond tide mark ran a little plateau some ten or twelve feet broad.

She saw it as well as he and filled with new strength she cried out to be set down.

"Stay easy," said Raft. "It's easier to carry the bundle with you on my shoulder, you ain't no weight."

Then when he reached the steps:

"Done it b'G.o.d," said he.

He dropped the bundle and harpoon, and, lifting her, set her feet on the basalt steps.

"Can you climb it?" asked he.

Without a word she climbed and sitting on the little plateau looked down on him.

Then he followed with the things and took his seat beside her. They sat for a while without a word, the bare rocks and the grey sea before them.

A great rock out at sea, pierced and arched like the frame work of a door, shewed through its opening the sea beyond. Gulls flew round it and their eternal complaint came on the wind blowing, still lightly, from the north.

Raft seemed absorbed in thought.

Then he said: "It won't be high water until gettin' on for dark. We'd better stick here the night anyhow and get the low tide to-morrow. But there's time for me now to get to that next shoulder and see what's beyond, it's a matter of four miles there maybe and four miles back."

"I'll go with you," said she, "I'm stronger now."

"No, you stick here," said he. "There's no call for two to go. You'll want your strength for the morning."

"Only for you I wouldn't be here," said she.

"Well, maybe you wouldn't," said Raft. "It's as well I was along with you, but you ain't no weight--no more than a kitten. I never thought you were as bad as that or I'd have lifted you miles back."

"Aren't you tired?" she asked.

"Me--oh, no, not more than a bit stiff in the arm." He stretched his left arm out. Then he looked at the bundle.

"You don't want nothing to eat just yet?" asked he.

"Not till you come back," she answered. "I'll watch you from here."

He scrambled down, picked up the harpoon which he had left on the rocks and then looked up and nodded to her.

"I'll keep in sight," said he. Then he started.

She watched his great figure as it went, harpoon in hand, growing smaller and smaller, till, now, she could have covered it with her thumb nail. As the distance increased it seemed to go slower and the great black cliffs to grow higher.

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."