And now, away at sea and leagues from the coast they were approaching, vast islands disclosed themselves suddenly through the sea haze, standing like giants waist deep in the ocean, whilst the coast itself with its cliffs and rocks of black basalt and dolerite shewed clear, extraordinarily clear, with every detail defined in the sunlight, from the rifts in the basalt to the gulls blowing about in legions and the great sea-geese hovering and fishing.

The coast was ferocious, and the whole country from the sea foam to the foothills looked tumbled and new, with the newness of infinite antiquity. The last thunders of creation seemed scarcely to have died away, the last throe scarcely to have ceased, leaving million-ton rock cast on rock and the new, shear-cut cliffs spitting back their first taste of the bitter sea.

“There is nowhere to land,” said the girl. She was shuddering as a dog shudders when overstrung.

“Ay, it’s a brute beast of a place,” said Bompard, “well, we must nose along on the lookout. There’s no coast but hasn’t some landing-place where a boat can push in. Y’See it’s not like a ship. A boat can go where a ship can’t.”

He shifted the helm a bit, keeping the coast parallel to them on the starboard side.

“Might those islands be better to go to?” asked she, “they couldn’t be worse than that.”

La Touche suddenly grew excited. “Bon Dieu,” cried he, “what a thing to be saying! Those islands, nothing but rocks—nothing but rocks. Here there is land, at all events, good land one can put one’s foot on; out there there’s nothing but rocks. Rather than go out there I would swim ashore—I would—”

“Oh, close up,” said Bompard, “don’t talk about swimming—maybe you’ll have to.”

“One can always drown,” said La Touche.

It was Bompard who next broke the silence.

“I’ve been over cliffs worse than those, for gulls eggs,” said he, “take one coast with another, coasts are pretty much the same, you get bad bits and easy bits, that is all.”

La Touche said nothing.

As they drew on the great islands out at sea ranged themselves more definitely and the tremendous coast to starboard shewed more clearly its deep cut canons, its sea arches and absolute desolation.

The sea had fallen, though the wind still held steady, and this surface calmness, under-run by a gentle swell, served only to emphasize the vastness of the view. The island seemed immensely remote and immense in size, the far snow-covered mountains the mountains of a land where giants had lived and from which they had departed countless ages ago.

Oyster catches passed the boat with their melancholy cry, but the fishing gannets and the swimming puffins seemed scarcely to heed the intruders. Puffins swimming a biscuit toss away as though they had never learned the fear of man.

They had drawn nearer shore so that the boom of the swell in the caves and on the rocks came to them with the crying of the shore birds; passing a headland like a vast lizard they opened a beach curved like the new moon and seven miles from horn to horn.

“There’s our landing-place,” cried Bompard, “big enough to pick and choose from.”

“Lord!” shouted La Touche. “Look over there—moving rocks!”

He pointed half a mile away to seaward.

Bompard looked.

“Those crest rocks, they’re whales,” said he.

A pair of whales shewed, standing up, coupling in the chill blue grey water, a miraculous sight, as though they had entered a world where the original things of life still moved and had their being untroubled by man and untouched by Time.

Bompard shifted the helm, and the boat, heading for the shore and no longer running before the wind, moved less easily, shipping an occasional dash of spray.

The change of movement, the dash of spray, the altered course were to the girl like the turning of a corner. Running with the wind and with a parallel shore the boat was the world and the coast and island a panorama. With the twist of the helm Reality made the coast a destination. Up to this moment the uncertainty of whether they could land had held her mind, up to this moment all sorts of vague possibilities, the chance of meeting a ship, the chance of being blown out to sea, the chance of this or that had come between her and the realisation of the fact that this prison was hers.

The monstrosity of the idea stood fully revealed only now on that beach where there was nothing but sand, nothing but rocks, nothing but gulls. Close in now Bompard let go the sheet and they unstepped the mast, the boat rocking in the trough of the swell. Then they got the oars out.

As they bent to their work and over the creak of the leather in the rowlocks the rumble and fume of the seven mile beach came mixed with the yelping and mewing of the gulls. The boat made slow progress, then a few yards from the surf line it hung for a moment till the rowers suddenly gave way and moving like a relieved arrow she came on the crest of a wave, then the oars came in with a crash and the two men tumbling out dragged her nose high and dry. They helped the girl out and as they pulled the boat higher she stood, the wind flicking her oilskin coat about her and the spindrift blowing in her face.