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 shell 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 ship. 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."

"Well, maybe, you aren't far wrong," replied the other, "we've scraped
through so far and maybe we'll scrape 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