e had not to go very far to find, he returned
to watch the sea once more, and there he remained, never removing his
eyes from the wonderful scene until the sun was directly over his
head; then, when the sea was calm once more, he got up and started
to walk along the cliff.

Keeping close to the edge, occasionally stopping to lie down on his
chest and peer over, he went on and on for hours, until the
afternoon tide once more covered the strip of shingled beach, and
the waves rising high began to beat with a sound like thunder
against the tremendous cliff, making the earth tremble under him. At
length he came to a spot where there was a great gap in the line of
the cliff, where in past times a portion of it had tumbled down, and
the stupendous masses of rock had rolled far out into the sea, and
now formed islands of black jagged rock, standing high above the
water. Here among the rocks the sea boiled and roared its loudest,
churning its waters into masses of white froth. Here a fresh wonder
met his sight: a number of big animals unlike any creature he had
ever seen before were lying prone on the rocks just out of the reach
of the waves that beat round them. At first they looked like cows,
then he saw that they had neither horns nor legs, that their heads
were like dog's but without ears, and that they had two great
flapper-shaped feet on their chests with which they walked or
crawled upon the rocks whenever a wave broke on them, causing them
to move a little higher.

[Illustration: ]

They were sea-lions, a very big sort of seal, but Martin had never
heard of such a creature, and being anxious to look more closely at
them he went into the gap, and began cautiously climbing down over
the broken masses of rock and clay until he got quite near the sea.
Lying there on a flat rock he became absorbed in watching these
strange dog-headed legless cattle of the sea; for he now had them
near, and they could see him, and occasionally one would lift its
head and gaze earnestly at him out of large dark eyes that were soft
and beautiful like the eyes of the doe that came to him on the hills.
O how glad he was to know that the sea, the mighty waters roaring so
loud as if in wrath, had its big beasts too for him to love, like
the hills and plains with their cattle and deer and horses!

But the tide was still rising, and very soon the biggest waves began
to come quite over the rocks, rolling the big beasts over and even
washing them