Reader, have you ever run a race with the sea? If not, accept the
testimony of one who has had to do it more than once, that it is a very
painful and exciting race. I ran it once successfully with one who,
though we then escaped, has since been overtaken and swallowed up by the
great dark waves of that other sea, whose tides are ever advancing upon
us, and must sooner or later absorb us all--the great dark waves of
Death. But to take your life in your hand, and run and to know that the
sea is gaining upon you, and that, however great the speed with which
fear wings your feet, your subtle hundred-handed enemy is intercepting
you with its many deep inlets, and does not bate an instant's speed, or
withhold itself a hair's-breadth for all your danger--is an awful thing
to feel. And then to see that it _has_ intercepted you is worst of all;
it is a moment not to be forgotten. And all this was what Kenrick had
to undergo. He ran until he panted for breath, and stumbled for very
weariness--but he was too late. A broad sheet of water now bathed the
bases of the cliff, and the waves, as though angry with the opposing
breeze, were leaping up with a frantic hiss, and deluging the rocks with
sheets of spray and foam.

Experience had taught him with what speed and fury on that dangerous
coast the treacherous tide came in. There was not a moment to spare,
and as he flew back to the small shelter of the pebbly cove, the water
was already gliding close to him, and stretching its arms like a hungry
medusa round the seaweed-matted lumps of scattered rock over which he
strode.

His face wetted with the salt dew, his brown hair scattered on the
rising wind, he flew rather than ran once more to the place where he had
descended, to renew the wild attempt to scale the cliff which seemed to
afford him the only shadow of a hope. Yet a mere glance might have been
enough to show him that this hope was vain. Both at that spot, and as
far as he could see, the sheer base of the cliff offered him no place
where it was possible to rest a foot, no place where he could mount
three feet above the shingle. But his scrutiny brought home to him
another appalling fact--namely, that the sea-mark, where the highest
tide fringed its barriers with a triumphal wreath of hanging seaweed,
and below which no foliage grew, was high up upon the cliff, far above
his head.

It was too late to curse his rashness and folly, nor would he even try
to face his