nds.

And the brutal tide coming on, according to the pitiless irreversible
certainty of the fixed laws that governed it--coming on like a huge
wallowing monster, dumb and blind--knew not, and recked not, of the
young life that quivered on the verge of its advance--that it was about
to devour remorselessly, with no wrath to satiate, with no hunger to
appease. None the less for the boy's presence, unregardful of his
growing horror and wild suspense, it continued its uncouth play--leaping
about the rocks, springing upwards and stretching high hands to pluck
down the cliffs, seeming to laugh as it fell back shattered and
exhausted, but unsubdued; charging up sometimes like a herd of white
horses, bounding one over the other, shaking their foaming manes--
hissing sometimes like a brood of huge sea-serpents, as it insinuated it
winding streams among the boulders of the shore.

It might have seemed to be in sport with _him_ as it ran first up to his
feet, and playfully splashed him, as a bather might splash a person on
the shore from head to heel, and then ran back again for a moment, and
then up again a little farther, till, as he sat on the extreme line of
the shore and with his back huddled up close against the cliff, it first
wetted the soles of his feet, and then was over his shoes, then
ankle-deep, then knee deep, then to the waist. Already it seemed to
buoy him up; he knew that in a few moments more he would be forced to
swim, and the last struggle would commence.

His brain was dull, his senses blunted, his mind half-idiotic, when
first (for his eyes had been fixed downwards on the growing, encroaching
waters) he caught a glimpse, in the failing daylight, of the black
outline of a boat, not twenty yards from him, and caught the sound of
its plashing oars. He stared eagerly at it, and just as it came beside
him he lost all his strength, uttered a faint cry, and slipped down
fainting into the waves.

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.

ON THE DARK SEA.

Boys
Leaning upon their oars, with splash and strain,
Made white with foam the green and purple sea.

Shelley.

In a moment Walter's strong arms had caught him, and lifted him tenderly
into the boat. While the waves tossed them up and down they placed him
at full length as comfortably as they could,--which was not very
comfortably--and though his clothes were streaming with salt water, and
his fainting fit still continued, they began at once to row home. Fo