Читать книгу: «The Haute Noblesse: A Novel», страница 15

Chapter Thirty
In the Queen’s Name

As they stood together at the lower end of the rocky point listening and waiting, it seemed to Louise Vine as if she were about to be an actor in some terrible scene.

Vine muttered a few words now and then, but they were inaudible to his child, who clung to his arm as he walked untiringly to and fro, watching the harbour and the way back into the town, while when he paused it was to fix his eyes upon the dimly-seen lantern of the lugger lying out beyond the point. The portion of their walk nearest the town was well kept and roughly paved with great slabs of granite, in which were here and there great rings for mooring purposes, while at some distance apart were projecting masses roughly hewn into posts. But as the distance from the town increased and the harbour widened, the jutting point was almost as if it had been formed by nature, and the footing was difficult, even dangerous at times.

But in his excitement Vine did not heed this, going on and on regardless of the difficulties, and Louise unmurmuringly walked or at times climbed along, till they were right out at the extreme point where, some feet below them, the water rushed and gurgled in and out of the crevices with terrible gasping noises, such as might be made by hungry sea-monsters thronging round to seize them if either of them should make a slip.

Here Vine paused again and again to watch the lantern in the lugger, and listen for the rattle of oars in the rowlocks, the oars of the boat conveying his son to the men who would at once hoist the sails and bear him away to a place of safety. But the dim light of the horn lantern rose and fell, there was no rattle of oars, not even the murmur of a voice; nothing but the sucking, gasping noises at their feet, as the tide swirled by like the race of waters from some huge mill.

Louise clung more tightly to her father’s arm, as he stood again and again where she had often from a rock behind watched her uncle deftly throwing out his line to capture some silvery-sided bass or a mackerel, glowing with all the glories of the sea at sunrise.

“If he should slip,” she said to herself, as she tightened her grasp of her father’s thin arm, “if he should slip!” and she shuddered as she gazed down into the deep, black rushing water, where the star reflections were all broken up and sparkled deep down as if the current were charged with gold dust, swirling and eddying by. Then she started as her father spoke aloud to himself.

“No, no, no!” he murmured. Then sharply, “Come, let us get back.”

Louise crept along by him in silence, her heart giving one violent leap, as Vine slipped once on the spray-wet rocks, but recovered himself and went on without a word. Again and again, she suffered that terrible catching of the breath, as her father slipped, caught his foot in some inequality, or would, but for her guidance, have stumbled over some projecting rock post and been thrown into the harbour. For as he walked on, his eyes were constantly searching the dark surface as he listened intently for some token of the escaping man.

But all was still as they neared the town, still with the silence of death. No one could have told that there were watchers by the ferry, where a rough boat was used for crossing from side to side of the harbour; that two boats were waiting, and that Duncan Leslie was patrolling the short arm of granite masonry that ran down to the tower-like building were the harbour lantern burned.

“Hist!” whispered Louise, for there was a step some little distance away, but it ceased, and as she looked in its direction, the cliffs seemed to tower up behind the town till a black, jagged ridge cut the starry sky.

“Let’s go back,” said her father, huskily. “I fancied I heard a boat stealing along the harbour; we cannot see the lugger light from here.”

“George!” came from out of the darkness ahead.

“Yes, Luke!” was whispered back sharply, and the old man came up.

“Seen anything of him?”

“No. Have you?”

“Not a sign. I sent one of the fishermen up to the police to see what he could find out, and – ”

“Uncle!” panted out Louise, as she left her father to cling to the old man.

“Poor little lassie! poor little lassie!” he said tenderly, as he took her and patted her head. “No news, and that’s good news. They haven’t got him, but they’re all out on the watch; the man from London and our dunderheads. All on the watch, and I fancy they’re on the look-out close here somewhere, and that’s what keeps him back.”

Louise uttered a low moan.

“Ah, it’s bad for you, my dear,” said Uncle Luke, whose manner seemed quite changed. “You come with me, and let me take you home. We don’t want mother trouble on our hands.”

“No, no,” she said firmly, “I cannot leave him.”

“But you will be ill, child.”

“I cannot leave him, uncle,” she said again; and going back to her father, she locked her fingers about his arm.

“Hi! hoi! look out!” came from a distance; and it was answered directly by a voice not a hundred yards away.

A thrill of excitement shot through the little group as they heard now the tramp of feet.

“I knew it,” whispered Uncle Luke. “He’s making for the harbour now.”

“Ah!” gasped Vine, as he almost dragged Louise over the rugged stones.

“Stop where you are,” said Uncle Luke, excitedly; and he placed something to his lips and gave a low shrill whistle.

It was answered instantly from the other side of the harbour.

“Leslie’s on the look-out. Yes, and the men with the boat,” he whispered, excitedly, as another low whistle was heard.

Then there was a few moment’s silence as if people were listening, followed by steps once more, and a quick voice exclaimed from out of the darkness:

“Seen him?”

Neither of the group answered, and a man stepped up to them and flashed the light of a lantern quickly over them before closing it again.

“That’s you, is it?” he said. “I’ll have a word with you by-and-by; but look here, I call upon you two men in the Queen’s name to help me to take him. If you help him to get away, it’s felony, so you may take the consequences. You haven’t got to do with your local police now.”

The man turned away and walked swiftly back toward the town, the darkness seeming to swallow him up. He paused for a few moments at the edge of the harbour, to throw the light of his lantern across the water.

“The London man,” said Uncle Luke, unconcernedly. “Well, God save the Queen, but I’m sure she don’t want us to help to capture our poor boy.”

Chapter Thirty One
“Oh! Absalom, My Son, My Son.”

Harry Vine had but one thought as he dashed out of his father’s house, and that was to escape – far away to some other country where neither he nor his crime were known – to some place where, with the slate of his past life wiped clean, he might begin anew, and endeavour to show to his father, to his sister, perhaps to Madelaine Van Heldre, that he was not all bad. How he would try, he told himself. Only let him get aboard one of the fishing luggers, and after confiding in some one or other of his old friends, the bluff fishermen who had often given him a sail or a day’s fishing, beg of him to take him across to Jersey or Saint Malo; anywhere, so as to avoid the terrible exposure of the law – anywhere to be free.

“I’d sooner die than be taken,” he said to himself as he sped on downward at a rapid rate.

The way to the harbour seemed clear, and, though the officer was pursuing him, Harry had the advantage of the darkness, and the local knowledge of the intricate ways of the little town, so that he felt no fear of being able to reach the harbour and some boat. He was reckoning without his host. His host, or would-be host, was the detective sergeant who had gone about his business in a business-like manner, so that when Harry Vine was congratulating himself upon the ease with which he was able to escape, one of the local policeman started from his post right in the fugitive’s way, nearly succeeding in catching him by the arm, an attention Harry avoided by doubling down one of the little alleys of the place. Over and over again he tried to steal down to the harbour, but so sure as he left his hiding place in one of the dark lanes or among the fishermen’s stores he heard steps before him, and with the feeling that the whole town had now risen up against him, and that the first person he encountered would seize and hold him until the arrival of the police, he crept back, bathed with cold perspiration, to wait what seemed to be an interminable time before he ventured again.

His last hiding place was a wooden shed not far from the water-side – a place of old ropes and sails, and with a loft stored full of carefully dried nets, put away till the shoals of fish for which they were needed visited the shore. Here in profound ignorance of what had been done on his behalf, he threw himself down on a heap of tarred canvas to try and devise some certain means of escape. He had a vague intention of getting the fishermen to help him; but after thinking of several, he could not decide which of the sturdy fellows would stand by such a culprit as he. And as he lay there the bitter regrets for the past began to attack him.

“Louise – sister,” he muttered to himself. “I must have been mad. And I lie here groaning like the coward I am,” he said fiercely, as, thrusting back all thoughts of the past with the intention of beginning afresh, he stole out once more into the dark night, meaning to get to the harbour, and, failing a better means, to take some small sailing-boat, and to trust to his own skill to get safely across.

The place was far more quiet now; and, avoiding the larger lanes, he threaded his way through passage after passage among the net-stores and boat-houses till he reached the main street, along which he was walking noiselessly when a heavy regular pace ahead checked him, and, turning shortly round, he made for the first narrow back lane, reached it, and turned trembling as he recognised that it was the familiar path leading by the back of Van Heldre’s, the way he knew so well.

Hurrying on, he had nearly reached the bottom, when he became aware of the fact that there was a policeman waiting. He turned sharply back, after nearly walking into the arms of one of his enemies, and was nearly at the top once more, when he found that the man whom he had tried to avoid was there too waiting.

“I’m caught,” he said bitterly, as he paused midway. “Shall I dash for liberty? No,” he said bitterly; “better give up.”

He raised his hand to guide himself silently along, when he shivered, for it touched a gate which yielded, and as the steps advanced from front and rear, he stepped down. Fate in her irony had decided that, to avoid arrest, he should take refuge in the premises of the man he had injured. The steps came nearer, and trembling with horror the fugitive glanced upward to see that two windows were illumined, and there was light enough to show that the door leading into the corridor was open. He shrank from it, and was then driven to enter and stand inside, listening, for the steps stopped outside, the door yielded, and a voice said:

“Couldn’t have been him. He wouldn’t have gone there.”

The gate swung gently to, and the fugitive began to breathe more freely, for after a low whispered conversation, it was evident that the watchers were about to separate, when there was a loud cough which Harry knew only too well; and to his horror he saw faintly in at the end of the passage his figure more plain by a light in the hall, the short stooping figure of Crampton coming towards him. To have stepped out into the yard would have been into the light, where the old man must have seen him; and, obeying his first instinct, Harry crouched down, and as Crampton advanced, backed slowly along the corridor till farther progress was stayed by the outer door of the office. Harry sank down in the corner, a dark shapeless heap to any one who had approached, and with heart throbbing, he waited.

“He is coming into the office,” he thought.

But as the old man reached the opening into the yard he paused. There was a faint rustling, then a flash and a match flared out illuminating the old clerk’s stern countenance, and it seemed as the tiny splint burned that discovery must take place now. But Crampton was intent upon the business which had brought him there. He had stolen out from his self-appointed task of watching over the house to have his nightly pipe, and for fully an hour, Harry Vine crouched in the corner by the office door, seeing over and over again the horrors of the past, and trembling as he waited for the fresh discovery, while old Crampton softly paced the little yard, smoking pipe after pipe.

That hour seemed as if it would never end, and at last in despair Harry was about to rise, when he heard Madelaine’s voice, gently calling to the old man.

“Hah!” he said softly; “a bad habit, Miss Madelaine, but it seems to soothe me now.”

Would he fasten the door and gate, and complete the horror of Harry’s position by making him a prisoner? The young man crouched there trembling, for Crampton recrossed the yard, and there was the sound of two bolts being shot. Then he regained the glass door, and was about to close that.

“No,” said Madelaine softly; “the night is so hot. Leave that open, Mr Crampton.”

“Yes, my dear; yes, my dear,” sighed the old man. “I shall be in the little room, and no one is likely to come here now.”

Gone at last, and trembling so in his wild excitement that he could hardly stir, Harry Vine literally crept along the corridor, rose up and ran across the yard with the horrible sensation that the old clerk’s hand was about to descend upon his shoulder. The two bolts were shot back with a loud snap, the gate was flung open; and, reckless now, he dashed out and down the narrow lane.

“He could bear no more,” he said. “The harbour and a boat.” He now ran rapidly, determined to end the terrible suspense, and for the first few moments, he felt that his task would be easy; then he heard a warning shout, and in his dread took refuge in the first alley leading down to the harbour.

Steps passed, and he emerged at the lower end, gained the main street by returning through another of the alleys by which, after the fashion of Yarmouth, the little town was scored.

“Five minutes will take me there now,” he panted; and, forcing himself to walk, he was hurrying on when a shout told him that his enemies were well upon the alert. With the horrible sense of being hunted, he dashed on, blindly now, reckless as to which way he went, so long as he reached the water-side. As he ran, he was about to strike down to the left where the landing steps lay; and had he reached them there was a boat and men waiting, but the London detective had discovered that and was on the alert.

Harry almost ran into his arms, but with a cry of rage he doubled back and ran for the shore, where he might set pursuit at defiance by hiding in the rocks below the cliff. But another man sprang up in his way, and in his despair he ran off to his left again, right along the great pier, towards the point.

“We’ve got him now,” shouted a voice behind as Harry rushed out, just conscious of a shriek as he brushed by a group of figures, hardly seen in the darkness. He heard, too, some confused words in which “boat” and “escape” seemed to be mingled. But in his excitement he could only think of those behind, as there came the patter of his pursuers’ feet on the rough stones.

There was a shrill whistle from the other side of the harbour, followed by a hail, and the splash of oars in the darkness, while a low “ahoy!” came from off the point.

“Yes,” muttered the officer between his teeth, “you’re a nice party down here, but I’ve got my man.”

What followed was the work of moments. Harry ran on till the rugged nature of the point compelled him to walk, then step cautiously from rock to rock. The harbour was on one side, the tide rushing in on the other; before him the end of the point, with its deep water and eddying currents, which no swimmer could stem, and behind him the London officer with the local police close up.

There was a boat, too, in the harbour, and the fugitive had heard the whistle, and cries. He saw the light of the lugger out ahead, and to him, in his mad horror of capture, they meant enemies – enemies on every hand.

And so he reached the extreme point, where, peering wildly about, like some hunted creature seeking a way of escape, he turned at bay.

“There, sir, the game’s up,” cried the officer. “You’ve made a good fight of it, so now give in.”

“Keep back!” roared Harry hoarsely. And he stooped and felt about for a loose piece of rock where every scrap had been washed away.

“Will you give in?” cried the officer.

“Keep back!” cried Harry again, in a tone so fierce that for a moment the officer paused.

There was another whistle from across the harbour, a shout and a hail out of the darkness, but nothing save the dim lantern light could be seen.

“Now then, you two,” said the officer decidedly, “back me up.”

There was a faint click as he drew something from his pocket, and without hesitation stepped boldly over the few feet which separated him from Harry Vine.

Panting, half wild, hearing the whistles, the cries, and still dividing nothing but that there were enemies on every hand, the young man uttered a hoarse cry as the detective caught at his breast. With one well-aimed blow he struck out, sent the man staggering back, and then, as those who hail watched and waited came panting up, he turned quickly, stepped to the very edge, raised his hands and plunged into the rushing tide.

“Harry! my son!” rang out on the darkness of the night.

But there was no answer. The black water seemed to flash with myriad points of light and then ran, hissing and rushing in a contending current, out to sea.

Chapter Thirty Two
“The Lord Gave, and…”

“Boat ahoy! Whoever you are – this way – boat!”

“Ahoy!” came back from three-quarters – from two different points in the harbour, and from out to sea.

Then came another whistle from far back on the other side of the harbour, and in a shrill voice from between his hands Uncle Luke yelled:

“Leslie, another boat, man, for the love of heaven!”

“Here! you there, sir! the nearest boat – quick, pull!” roared the detective in stentorian tones. “Have you no light?”

“Ay, ay,” came back; and a lantern that had been hidden under a tarpaulin coat shone out, dimly showing the boat’s whereabouts.

“That’s right; pull, my lads, off here. Man overboard off the rocks. This way.”

An order was given in the boat, and her course was altered.

“No, no,” cried the officer; “this way, my lads, this way.”

“We know what we’re about,” came back.

“Yes, yes; they know,” said Uncle Luke, hoarsely. “Let them be; the current sets the way they’ve taken. He’s right out there by now.”

The old man’s arm was dimly-seen pointing seawards, but the detective was not convinced.

“It’s a trick to throw me on the wrong scent,” he said excitedly. “Here, you,” – to one of the local police – “why don’t you speak?”

“Mr Luke Vine’s right, sir; he knows the set o’ the tide. The poor lad’s swept right out yonder long ago, and Lord ha’ mercy upon him, poor chap. They’ll never pick him up.”

“Can you see him?” roared the officer, using his hands as a speaking trumpet.

There was no reply; but the lantern could be seen rising and falling now, as the little craft began to reach the swell at the harbour bar.

Then there was a hail out of the harbour, as the second boat came along, and five minutes after the rapid beat of oars told of the coming of another boat.

“Ahoy, lad! this way,” rose from the boat with the lantern.

“Whose boat’s that?” said the detective, quickly.

“Dunno,” replied the nearest policeman.

“They’ll pick him up, and he’ll escape after all. Confound it! Here, hoi! you in that boat. In the Queen’s name, stop and take me aboard.”

“They won’t pick him up,” said the nearest policeman solemnly. “You don’t know this coast.”

There was a low groan from a figure crouching upon its knees, and supporting a woman’s head, happily insensible to what was passing around.

“George, lad,” whispered Uncle Luke, “for the poor girl’s sake, let’s get her home. George! don’t you hear me. George! It is I – Luke.”

There was no reply, and the excitement increased as a swift boat now neared the end of the point.

“Where is he? Is he swimming for the boat?” cried a voice, hardly recognisable in its hoarse excitement for that of Duncan Leslie.

“He jumped off, Mr Leslie, sir,” shouted one of the policemen.

“Row, my lads. Pull!” shouted Leslie; “right out.”

“No, no,” roared the detective; “take me aboard. In the Queen’s name, stop!”

“Pull,” cried Leslie to the men; and then turning to the detective, “while we stopped to take you the man would drown, and you couldn’t get aboard at this time of the tide.”

“He’s quite right,” said the policeman who had last spoken. “It’s risky at any time; it would be madness now.”

The detective stamped, as in a weird, strange way the voice kept coming from out of the darkness, where two dim stars could be seen, as the lanterns were visible from time to time; and now Leslie’s voice followed the others, as he shouted:

“This way, Vine, this way. Hail, man! Why don’t you hail?”

“Is this part of the trick to get him away?” whispered the detective to one of his men.

The man made no reply, and his silence was more pregnant than any words he could have spoken.

“But they’ll pick him up,” he whispered, now impressed by the other’s manner.

“Look out yonder,” said the policeman, a native of the place; “is it likely they’ll find him there?”

“Hah!” ejaculated the detective.

“And there’s no such current anywhere for miles along the coast as runs off here.”

“Hah!” ejaculated the man again, as he stood now watching the lights, one of which kept growing more distant, while the hails somehow seemed to be more faint and wild, and at last to resemble the despairing cries of drowning men.

“Listen,” whispered the detective in an awe-stricken tone, as he strove to pierce the darkness out to sea.

“It was Master Leslie, that,” said the second policeman; “I know his hail.”

Just then there was a wild hysterical fit of sobbing, and George Vine rose slowly from his knees, and staggered towards the group.

“Luke!” he cried, in a half-stunned, helpless way, “Luke you know – Where are you? Luke!”

“Here, George,” said Uncle Luke sadly, for he had knelt down in the place his brother had occupied the moment before.

“You know the currents. Will they – Will he – ”

He faltered and paused, waiting his brother’s reply, and the three officers of the law shuddered, as, after a few minutes’ silence, broken only by a groan from the kneeling man, George Vine cried in a piteous voice that sounded wild and thrilling in the solemn darkness of the night:

“God help me! Oh, my son, my son!”

“Quick, mind! Good heavens, sir! Another step and – ”

The detective had caught the stricken father as he tottered and would have fallen headlong into the tide, while, as he and another of the men helped him back to where Louise still lay, he was insensible to what passed around.

But still the dim lights could be seen growing more and more distant, and each hail sounded more faint, as the occupants of the boats called to each other, and then to him they sought, while, after each shout, it seemed to those who stood straining their eyes at the end of the pier, that there was an answering cry away to their left; but it was only the faint echo repeating the call from the face of the stupendous cliffs behind the town.

“Why don’t they come back here and search?” cried the officer angrily.

“What for?” said a voice at his elbow; and he turned to see dimly the shrunken, haggard face of Uncle Luke.

“What for?” retorted the officer. “He may have swum in the other direction.”

“So might the world have rolled in the other direction and the sunrise to-morrow in the west,” said the old man angrily. “No swimmer could stem that current.”

“But why have they gone so far?”

“They have gone where the current took them,” said Uncle Luke, coldly. “Want the help of your men to get these poor creatures home.”

The detective made no reply, but stood gazing out to sea and listening intently. Then turning to his men —

“One of you keep watch here in case they try to land with him. You come with me.”

The two policemen followed his instructions, one taking his place at the extreme end of the point, the other following just as voices were heard, and a group of fishermen, who had been awakened to the fact that there was something wrong, came down the rocky breakwater.

“Here, some of you, I want a boat – a swift boat, and four men to pull. Ah, you!”

This to a couple of the coastguard who had put in an appearance, and after a few hurried words one party went toward the head of the breakwater, while another, full of sympathy for the Vines, went on to the end of the point.

There was plenty of willing help, but George Vine had now recovered from his swoon, and rose up to refuse all offers of assistance.

“No, Luke,” he said more firmly now; “I must stay.”

“But our child, Louise?”

“She must stay with me.”

Louise had risen to her feet, as he spoke, and clung to his arm in mute acquiescence; and once more they stood watching the star-spangled sea.

Ten minutes later a well-manned boat passed out of the harbour, with the detective officer in her bows and a couple of the strongest lights they could obtain.

Just as this boat came abreast of the point the rowing ceased, and a brilliant glare suddenly flashed out as the officer held aloft a blue signal light; and while the boat was forced slowly along he carefully scanned the rocks, in the expectation of seeing his quarry clinging somewhere to their face.

The vivid light illumined the group upon the point, and the water flashed and sparkled as it ran eddying by, while from time to time a gleaming drop of golden fire dropped with a sharp hissing explosion into the water, and a silvery grey cloud of smoke gathered overhead.

The officer stayed till the blue light had burned out, and then tossing the wooden handle into the water, he gave his orders to the men to row on out toward the other boats.

The transition from brilliant light to utter darkness was startling as it was sudden; and as the watchers followed the dim looking lanterns, they saw that about a mile out they had paused.

George Vine uttered a gasping sigh, and his child clung to him as if both realised the meaning of that halt. But they were wrong, for when the men in the detective’s boat had ceased rowing, it was because they were close abreast of the lugger, whose crew had hailed them.

“Got him?”

“No. Is he aboard your boat?”

Without waiting for an answer, the detective and his men boarded the lugger, and, to the disgust of her crew, searched from end to end.

“Lucky for you, my lads, that he is not here,” said the officer.

“Unlucky for him he aren’t,” said one of the men. “If he had been we shouldn’t have had you aboard to-night.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only that we should have been miles away by now.”

“Do you think either of the other boats have picked him up?”

“Go and ask ’em,” said another of the men sulkily.

“No, sir,” said one of the coastguard, “they haven’t picked him up.”

“Back!” said the detective shortly; and, as soon as they were in the boat, he gave orders for them to row towards the faint light they could see right away east. They were not long in coming abreast, for the boat was returning.

“Got him?” was shouted.

“No.”

“Then why did you make the signal?”

The detective officer was a clever man, but it had not occurred to him that the blue light he had obtained from the coastguard station and burned would act as a recall. But so it was, and before long the second boat was reached, and that which contained Duncan Leslie came up, the latter littering an angry expostulation at being brought back from his search.

“It’s no good, Mr Leslie, sir,” said the fisherman who had made the bargain with Vine.

“No good?” cried Leslie angrily. “You mean you’re tired, and have not the manhood to continue the search.”

“No, sir, I don’t,” said the man quietly. “I mean I know this coast as well as most men. I’ll go on searching everywhere you like; but I don’t think the poor lad can be alive.”

“Ay, ay, that’s right, mate,” growled two others of his fellows.

“He was a great swimmer,” continued the man sadly; “but it’s my belief he never come up again.”

“Why do you say that?” cried the detective from his boat, as the four hung clustered together, a singular-looking meeting out there on the dark sea by lantern light.

“Why do I say that? Why ’cause he never hailed any on us who knew him, and was ready to take him aboard. Don’t matter how good a swimmer a man is, he’d be glad of a hand out on a dark night, and with the tide running so gashly strong.”

“You may be right,” said Leslie, “but I can’t go back like this. Now, my lads, who’s for going on?”

“All on us,” said the fisherman who had first spoken, and the boats separated to continue their hopeless task.

All at once there was a faint streak out in the east, a streak of dull grey, and a strange wild, faint cry came off the sea.

“There!” cried the detective; “pull, my lads, pull! he is swimming still. No, no, more towards the right.”

“Swimming? – all this time, and in his clothes!” said one of the coastguard quietly. “That was only a gull.”

The detective struck his fist into his open left hand, and stood gazing round over the glistening water, as the stars paled, the light in the east increased till the surface of the sea seemed steely grey, and by degrees it grew so light that near the harbour a black speck could be seen, toward which the officer pointed.

“Buoy,” said the nearest rower laconically, and the officer swept the surface again. Then there was a faint shade of orange nearly in the zenith, a flock of gulls flew past, and here and there there were flecks and splashes of the pale silvery water, which ere long showed the reflection of the orange sky, and grew golden. The rocks that lay at the foot of the huge wall of cliff were fringed with foam, and wherever there was a break in the shore and some tiny river gurgled down, a wreathing cloud of mist hung in the hollow.