but in that instant there came a roar such as he had not heard before--a
sound so compelling, so nerve-shattering, that even he was arrested,
entrapped as it were by a horror of crashing elements that made him
wonder if all the fiends in hell were fighting for his soul. And, as he
paused, the swirl of a great wave caught him in the darkness like the
blow of a concrete thing, nearly flinging him backwards. He staggered,
for the first time stricken with fear, and then in the howling uproar of
that dreadful place there came to him like a searchlight wheeling
inwards the thought of the girl. The water receded from him, leaving him
drenched, almost dazed, but a voice within--an urgent, insistent
voice--clamoured that his safety was at stake, his life a matter of mere
moments if he lingered. This was the Death Current of which Rufus had
warned him only that afternoon. Had not the bell-buoy been tolling to
deaf ears for some time past? The Death Current that came like a tidal
wave! And nothing could live in it. The girl--surely the girl had been
washed off her ledge and overwhelmed in the flood before it had reached
him. Possibly Rufus would manage to save her, for that it was Rufus who
had so savagely sprung upon him he had no doubt; but he himself was
powerless. If he saved his own life it would be by a miracle. Had not
the fellow warned him that retreat by way of the cliff-path would be cut
off in thirty seconds when the tide raced up like that? And if he failed
to reach that, only the quicksand was left--the quicksand that dragged
a man down quicker than hell!

He set his teeth and turned his face to the cliff. A light was shining
half-way up it--that must come from the window of Rufus's cottage. He
took it as a beacon, and began to stumble through the howling darkness
towards it. He knew the cliff-path. He had come down it only that night
to make sure that there was no one spying upon them. The cottage had
been shut and dark then, the little garden empty. He had concluded that
Rufus had gone early to rest after a long day with the nets, and had
passed on securely to wait for Columbine on the edge of their magic
pool. But what he did not know was exactly where the cliff-path ran out
on to the beach. The opening was close to the Caves and sheltered by
rocks. Could he find it in this infernal darkness? Could he ever make
his way to it in time? With the waves crashing behind him he struggled
desperately towards the blackness o