Chapter 43 - Page 2

told them, much to the relief of Sol, who, being extremely anxious to enter Knollsea before a late hour, had known that this was the only way in which it could be done.

Some unforeseen incident delayed the boat, and they walked up and down the pier to wait. The prospect was gloomy enough. The wind was north-east; the sea along shore was a chalky-green, though comparatively calm, this part of the coast forming a shelter from wind in its present quarter. The clouds had different velocities, and some of them shone with a coppery glare, produced by rays from the west which did not enter the inferior atmosphere at all. It was reflected on the distant waves in patches, with an effect as if the waters were at those particular spots stained with blood. This departed, and what daylight was left to the earth came from strange and unusual quarters of the heavens. The zenith would be bright, as if that were the place of the sun; then all overhead would close, and a whiteness in the east would give the appearance of morning; while a bank as thick as a wall barricaded the west, which looked as if it had no acquaintance with sunsets, and would blush red no more.

'Any other passengers?' shouted the master of the steamboat. 'We must be off: it may be a dirty night.'

Sol and Mountclere went on board, and the pier receded in the dusk.

'Shall we have any difficulty in getting into Knollsea Bay?' said Mountclere.

'Not if the wind keeps where it is for another hour or two.'

'I fancy it is shifting to the east'ard,' said Sol.

The captain looked as if he had thought the same thing.

'I hope I shall be able to get home to-night,' said a Knollsea woman. 'My little children be left alone. Your mis'ess is in a bad way, too--isn't she, skipper?'

'Yes.'

'And you've got the doctor from Sandbourne aboard, to tend her?'

'Yes.'

'Then you'll be sure to put into Knollsea, if you can?'

'Yes. Don't be alarmed, ma'am. We'll do what we can. But no one must boast.'

The skipper's remark was the result of an observation that the wind had at last flown to the east, the single point of the compass whence it could affect Knollsea Bay. The result of this change was soon perceptible. About midway in their transit the land elbowed out to a bold chalk promontory; beyond this stretched a vertical wall of the same cliff, in a line parallel with their course. In fair weather it was possible and customary to steer close along under this hoary facade for the distance of a mile, there being six fathoms of water within a few boats' lengths of the precipice. But it was an ugly spot at the best of times, landward no less than seaward, the cliff rounding off at the top in vegetation, like a forehead with low-grown hair, no defined edge being provided as a warning to unwary pedestrians on the downs above.

As the wind sprung up stronger, white