"Right--hold on for a moment!" Taffy's ankle pained him, but the
wrench was not serious. The cliff shelved easily. He slid down,
clutching at the tamarisk boughs which whipped his face. "Where are
you? I can't see."

"Here!" The voice was not a dozen yards away.

"Swimming?"

"No--I've got a water-breaker--can't hold on much longer."

"I believe you can touch bottom there."

"Hey? I can't hear."

"Try to touch bottom. It's firm sand hereabouts."

"So I can." The splashing and coughing came nearer, came close.
Taffy stretched out a hand. A hand, icy-cold, fumbled and gripped it
in the darkness.

"Christ! Where's a place to lie down?"

"Here, on this rock." They peered at each other, but could not see.
The man's teeth chattered close to Taffy's ear.

"Warm my hands, mate--there's a good chap." He lay on the rock and
panted. Taffy took his hands and began to rub them briskly.

"Where's the ship?"

"Where's the ship?" He seemed to turn over the question in his mind,
and then stretched himself with a sigh. "How the hell should I
know?"

"What's her name?" Taffy had to ask the question twice.

"The _Samaritan_, of Newport, brigantine. Coals she carried.
Ha'n't you such a thing as a match? It seems funny to me, talkin'
here like this, and me not knowin' you from Adam."

He panted between the words, and when he had finished lay back and
panted again.

"Hurt?" asked Taffy after a while.

The man sat up and began to feel his limbs, quite as though they
belonged to some other body. "No, I reckon not."

"Then we'd best be starting. The tide's rising. My house is just
above here."

He led the way along the slippery foreshore until he found what he
sought, a foot-track slanting up the cliff. Here he gave the sailor
a hand and they mounted together. On the grass slope above they met
the gale and were forced to drop on their hands and knees and crawl,
Taffy leading and shouting instructions, the sailor answering each
with "Ay, ay, mate!" to show that he understood.

But about half-way up these answers ceased, and Taffy, looking round
and calling, found himself alone. He groped his way back for twenty
yards, and found the man stretched on his face and moaning.

"I can't . . . I can't! My poor brother! I can't!"

Taffy knelt beside him on the soaking turf. "Your brother? Had you
a brother on board?"

The man bowed his face again upon the turf. Taffy, upright on both
knees, h