ant. Alone she would
never have dared this road, even with Raft leading her she felt timid
and oppressed. The place did not seem to affect Raft. Plodding ahead as
indifferently as though he were on some civilized country road, he
talked to her now and then over his shoulder, calling attention to queer
shaped crabs or dead kelp fish, and ever as they went their road grew
broader as the tide drew out.

It was now about an hour and a half after high water, that is to say,
quarter ebb; in a little more than ten hours it would be high water
again, before that they must find a way from the beach or be drowned.
Raft knew this and the girl knew it too. It seemed almost impossible
that, with so much time before them, they could not find a break in the
cliffs towards safe ground, yet the cliffs seemed to stretch endlessly
before them and their pace was slow, not more than three miles an hour.
They rested sometimes for a moment watching the out-going sea and the
gulls; unused to exercise the girl was tired, and the man knew it. Alone
he could have travelled swiftly and without resting, but he said
nothing, and though he knew the necessity of speed, it was he who made
the halts for the sake of his companion. Three hours after noon he took
some food out of the bundle and made her eat. They had already drunk
from a little torrent rushing out of a crack in the cliff wall, but even
so the food seemed dry and she could scarcely swallow it. Anxiety had
her in its grip, the cliffs stretching on and on interminably seemed
like misfortune itself made visible.

Said Raft: "The tide's near the turn and them cliffs don't shew no sign
of a cut in them, but then there's only two miles or so to be seen from
here. Round that bend there's no knowing, they may break away beyond
there. What I'm thinkin' is this. We've time to get back along the road
we've come by before it's high water again."

"Go back?"

"We've time to do it; if we keep on our course it will take us maybe
near an hour to get to that shoulder and from there we won't have much
time to get back before high water again. We've cut it too fine and if
the tide comes back and catches us before we get to a break we're done."

She looked forward then she looked back. They were in a veritable
corridor. The sea formed the right hand wall of this corridor, the
cliffs varying from two hundred to three hundred feet high formed the
left hand wall, cliffs black as ebony, polished by sea washin