CHAPTER VII
THE COAST
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 itselfwith its cliffs and rocks of black basalt and dolerite shewed clear,extraordinarily clear, with every detail defined in the sunlight, fromthe rifts in the basalt to the gulls blowing about in legions and thegreat sea-geese hovering and fishing.
The coast was ferocious, and the whole country from the sea foam to thefoothills looked tumbled and new, with the newness of infiniteantiquity. The last thunders of creation seemed scarcely to have diedaway, the last throe scarcely to have ceased, leaving million-ton rockcast on rock and the new, shear-cut cliffs spitting back their firsttaste of the bitter sea.
"There is nowhere to land," said the girl. She was shuddering as a dogshudders when overstrung.
"Ay, it's a brute beast of a place," said Bompard, "well, we must nosealong on the lookout. There's no coast but hasn't some landing-placewhere a boat can push in. Y'see it's not like a ship. A boat can gowhere a ship can't."
He shifted the helm a bit, keeping the coast parallel to them on thestarboard side.
"Might those islands be better to go to?" asked she, "they couldn't beworse than that."
La Touche suddenly grew excited. "Bon Dieu," cried he, "what a thing tobe saying! Those islands, nothing but rocks--nothing but rocks. Herethere is land, at all events, good land one can put one's foot on; outthere there's nothing but rocks. Rather than go out there I would swimashore--I would--"
"Oh, close up," said Bompard, "don't talk about swimming--maybe you'llhave 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, "takeone coast with another, coasts are pretty much the same, you get badbits and easy bits, that is all."
La Touche said nothing.
As they drew on the great islands out at sea ranged themselves moredefinitely and the tremendous coast to starboard shewed more clearly itsdeep cut canons, its sea arches and absolute desolation.
The sea had fallen, though the wind still held steady, and this surfacecalmness, under-run by a gentle swell, served only to emphasize thevastness of the view. The island seemed immensely remote and immense insize, the far snow-covered mountains the mountains of a land wheregiants had lived and from which they had departed countless ages ago.
Oyster catches passed the boat with their melancholy cry, but thefishing gannets and the swimming puffins seemed scarcely to heed theintruders. Puffins swimming a biscuit toss away as though they had neverlearned the fear of man.
They had drawn nearer shore so that the boom of the swell in the cavesand 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 likethe new moon and seven miles from horn to horn.
"There's our landing-place," cried Bompard, "big enough to pick andchoose 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 greywater, a miraculous sight, as though they had entered a world where theoriginal things of life still moved and had their being untroubled byman and untouched by Time.
Bompard shifted the helm, and the boat, heading for the shore and nolonger running before the wind, moved less easily, shipping anoccasional dash of spray.
The change of movement, the dash of spray, the altered course were tothe girl like the turning of a corner. Running with the wind and with aparallel shore the boat was the world and the coast and island apanorama. With the twist of the helm Reality made the coast adestination. Up to this moment the uncertainty of whether they couldland had held her mind, up to this moment all sorts of vaguepossibilities, the chance of meeting a ship, the chance of being blownout to sea, the chance of this or that had come between her and therealisation of the fact that this prison was hers.
The monstrosity of the idea stood fully revealed only now on that beachwhere there was nothing but sand, nothing but rocks, nothing but gulls.Close in now Bompard let go the sheet and they unstepped the mast, theboat 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 therowlocks the rumble and fume of the seven mile beach came mixed with theyelping and mewing of the gulls. The boat made slow progress, then a fewyards from the surf line it hung for a moment till the rowers suddenlygave way and moving like a relieved arrow she came on the crest of awave, then the oars came in with a crash and the two men tumbling outdragged her nose high and dry. They helped the girl out and as theypulled the boat higher she stood, the wind flicking her oilskin coatabout her and the spindrift blowing in her face.
The Beach of Dreams: A Romance Page 7