The Rocks of Valpré | Page 7

there. The tenth, then! Don't forget! Good-bye, and
thank you ever so much! You won't fail me, will you?"
He bent low over the impetuous little hand. "I shall not fail you,
mademoiselle. Adieu!"

"Au revoir!" she laughed back. "Come along, Cinders! We shall be late
for tea."
He stood motionless on the sunlit sand and watched her go.
She was limping, but she moved quickly notwithstanding. Cinders
trotted soberly by her side.
As she reached the little plage, she turned as if aware of his watching
eyes and nonchalantly waved the towel that dangled on her arm. The
sunlight had turned her hair to burnished copper. It made her for the
moment wonderful, and a gleam of swift admiration shot across the
Frenchman's face.
"Merveilleux!" he whispered to himself, and half-aloud, "Good-bye,
little bird of Paradise!"
With a courteous gesture of farewell, he turned away. When he looked
again, the child, with her glorious, radiant hair, had passed from sight.
He went back, springing over the rocks, to the Gothic archway that had
fired her curiosity. The tide was rising fast. Already the white foam
raced up to the rocky entrance. He splashed through it, and went within
as one on business bent.
He was absent for some seconds, and soon a large wave broke with a
long roar and rushed swirling into the cave. As the gleaming water ran
out again, he emerged.
A single glance was sufficient to show him that retreat by way of the
beach was already cut off. He recognized the fact with a rueful grimace.
The long green waves tumbling along the rocks were rising higher
every instant.
With a quick glance around him, the young man sprang for an
upstanding rock, reached it in safety, and paused, keenly studying the
black face of the cliff.

It frowned above him like a rampart, gloomy, terrible, impregnable. He
shrugged his shoulders with another grimace, then, as the foam
splashed up over his feet, leaped lightly onto another rock higher than
the first, whence it was possible to reach a great buttress that jutted
outwards from the cliff itself.
Once upon this, he began to climb diagonally, clambering like a
monkey, availing himself of every inch that offered foothold. A slip
would have meant instant disaster, but this fact did not apparently occur
to him, or if it did he was not dismayed thereby. He even presently, as
he cautiously worked his way upwards, began to hum again in gay
snatches the song that a child's clear eyes had set running in his brain
that afternoon.
It was a progress that waxed more perilous as he proceeded. The waves
dashed themselves to cataracts below him. Return was impossible, and
many would have deemed advance equally so. But he struggled on,
maintaining his zigzag course upwards, with nerve unfailing and spirits
unimpaired.
Gulls flew out above his head and circled about him with indignant
protests. He looked somewhat like a gigantic gull himself, his slim
white figure outlined against the darkness of the cliff. He cried back to
the startled birds reassuringly in their own language, but the
commotion continued; and presently, finding precarious foothold on a
narrow ledge halfway up, he stopped to wipe his forehead and laugh
with merriment unfeigned. He was plainly in love with life--one in
whose eyes all things were good, but yet who loved the hazard of them
even better.
The ledge did not permit of much comfort. Nevertheless he managed to
turn upon it and to lean back against the cliff, with his brown face to
sky and sea. He even, after a moment, took out a cigarette and lighted it.
The sun shone full in his eyes, and he seemed to revel in it. A
sun-worshipper also, apparently!
He smoked his cigarette to the end very deliberately, flicking the ash
from time to time towards the raging water below. When he had quite

finished, he stretched his arms wide with a gesture of sublime
self-confidence, faced about, and very composedly continued his climb.
It grew more and more arduous as he neared the frowning summit. He
had to feel his way with the utmost caution. Once he missed his footing,
and slipped several feet before he could recover himself, and after this
experience he took a clasp-knife from his pocket and notched himself
footholds where none offered. It was a very lengthy business, and the
sun was dipping downwards to the sea ere he came within reach of his
goal. The top of the cliff overhung where he first approached it, and he
had to work a devious course below it till he came to a more favourable
place.
Reaching a gap at length, he braced himself for the final effort. The
surface of the cliff here was loose, and the