e rock, and held there spread-eagle fashion; but instead of
this it was perfectly calm, and the thought came upon him how grand it
would be to stand just where the wind was blowing its hardest, and to
see what it felt like to be in the full force of an Atlantic gale.

"I'll climb right up to the very top of the cliff," he said. "I wonder
whether the wind ever does blow strong enough to knock anyone down."

But there was too much to fascinate him below for him to drag himself
away at once. From where he stood he could see all along below the
cliffs where he had been rowed by Josh and Will, and that where, then
and afterwards, when his father accompanied them searching for some good
mineral vein, the sea had heaved gently, and the waves had curled over
and broken sparkling on the rocks, all was now one chaos of wildly
foaming and tossing waters. The huge green waves ran rolling in to
break with a noise like thunder, and when some huge hill of water came
in, rose, curled over, and broke, it was with a tremendous boom, and the
spray rushed thirty, forty, and fifty feet up the rock before it poured
back.

"I wonder what would happen to a boat if it was down there?" said Dick
aloud.

"Just the same as would happen to a walnut-shell if you were to throw it
down where five hundred hammers were beating about on a pile of stones
such as you use to mend the roads."

"Why, I didn't hear you come, Will," cried Dick eagerly.

"I was going to your place to tell you that we could not go out to-day,
of course, and I saw you come out, so I followed."

"And so a boat would not get on very well down there, wouldn't it?"

"Get on!" said Will smiling; "why, it would be smashed up."

"And suppose a ship were to be close in there, Will?"

"She would be beaten up into matchwood, all torn and ragged to pieces."

"But is the sea so strong?"

"Look at it," cried Will, pointing to the leaves, "It is awful
sometimes."

"Worse than this?"

"Yes: much," replied Will. "But look here, suppose a great ship came
driving round the head here and struck?"

"What do you mean by struck?"

"Driven on the rocks. Do you know what would happen then?"

"Well, she would be wrecked, I suppose," said Dick.

"Yes, the waves would come leaping and thundering over her the same as
they do over that piece of rock, and sweeping her decks. Then every
great wave that came in would lift her up, and then leave her to come
down crash upon the rocks, s