one of them sea chickens not used to solid stuff underfoot. D'you
know what one of them gulls does first thing he lands on board a ship by
chance?"

"No."

"He gets sick as a dog."

The cliff had an echo which, when it was not answering some loud boost
of the sea managed to return words, and between the smack of two waves
the girl heard it remark something about a dog. But the echo of the
cliff soon had its mouth too full to hold words. The sea now nearly at
full flood was bringing big waves along with it. In the gloom they could
see the racing grey ghosts, and here, on account of the curve, there was
little rhythm in the sound of it that came like the continuous thunder
of big drums. At their feet, like the licking vicious tongue of the
roaring monster, came the continuous gash-gash of waves washing up and
falling back.

The girl sat with the blanket around her leaning close up against the
man. She felt as a person feels standing before the cage of a tiger
uncertain as to the strength of the bars, sometimes a puff of wind
brought a touch of spray on her face, whilst the continuous muffled
thunder of the coast leagues seemed like the bastions of the whole world
at war with the sea.

"There's no call to be afraid," said Raft. He seemed, by some special
faculty, to be able to divine her feelings.

"I'm not exactly afraid," she replied. "It's just that everything seems
so big--and those cliffs, now, even when they are hidden, they make one
know they are there, they seem wicked and alive, yet not able to move."

"You've hit it," said he, "they're for all the world as if they were
looking at a chap. It's a rotten coast, but it's near high water now and
the tide will soon be drawing out."

This cheered her.

Then the whale birds began to cry and flit about. The whale birds are
blind by daylight and their voices scarcely ever heard, they are the
owls of the sea.

The girl talked about them for something to say, then she fell to
wondering why on a beach like this there were no sea elephants. Raft
explained "sea cows" would never come to a washed beach like this, there
were no dry rocks for them to "hang about" on.

He had lit his pipe with the tinder box and the smell of the tobacco
came good and comforting, the slap and dash of the waves sounded less
vicious, too, as though the sea had done its worst to get at them and
was foiled.

Then she said, apropos of nothing but the last of her wandering
thoughts: "Have