to that raging tumult was as dreadful to
contemplate as being flung bodily into some enormous piece of whirling
machinery, to be ground and dashed out of all human shape by a force as
pitiless as it was overwhelming.

Higher and higher rose the tide. Now our platform was completely
awash, and the seas, dashing against the end of the cavern, leaped up
like hungry wolves, and soaked afresh our already sodden clothes with
icy water. Thrown back in echoes from the arched roof of the cave, the
noise of the sea was probably magnified tenfold, and in the darkness
was terrifying to hear, while the compressed air rushed through the
opening above us with a long, whistling sigh. The wonder seems to me
that the pair of us did not lose our reason. Happily for us, in those
days folks were evidently made of tougher material, both as regards
muscle and nerve, else I could hardly have survived the exposure of
that night, let alone its long agony of suspense. As it was, I had
come about to the end of my tether; and had it not been for Woodley, I
should never have survived to write the present story. There came a
boom louder than we had heard before. I seemed to feel that mighty
mass of broken water sweeping towards us through the gloom. Then with
a crash it burst over the lower ledge, and rose level with our armpits.
I felt my numbed fingers relaxing their hold, and with a wild,
despairing cry was slipping from my place, when Woodley seized me with
one arm round the waist as the water subsided with a deafening roar.

That sea, I believe, was the largest which swept through the cave, and
shortly after this the tide must have commenced to ebb; but of what
happened next I had positively no remembrance, nor, strange to say, had
George. Whether he held on to me after I lost consciousness, or
whether we both continued to cling with a blind instinct of
self-preservation to our ledge when our overtaxed brains had become
oblivious to our surroundings, I cannot tell. How we maintained our
foothold through the succeeding hours of darkness is a mystery. The
next recollection I have is of finding myself lying on my side on the
platform, staring blankly at the tossing surf as it rushed through the
distant arch of rock in the gray light of morning.

The sea was rough, and a strong wind was blowing; but terrible as it
had seemed at high water and in the darkness of night, it could not
have been more than what seamen term half a gale, or we