op of my voice.

"I've no idea what the time is," he replied; "but I don't believe it's
high water yet--the tide's still rising."

For just a few moments I think even brave George Woodley was
panic-stricken at our hazardous situation, and his words added a fresh
terror to the darkness. If the tide was still flowing, then it was
only a matter of waiting till we should be washed away and drowned.
There was apparently nothing to be done but to take up our position as
far back as the width of our platform would allow, and so remain till
our fate was decided.

The air was full of a fine drenching mist, but as yet only the broken
spray from the waves had reached us. Trembling with cold and terror I
stood, hoping against hope that the tide had reached its height or
begun to ebb; then suddenly a larger sea than had hitherto entered the
cavern swept clean over our place of refuge, the rushing surf whirling
and hissing round our feet like a thousand serpents. The water had not
taken us much above the ankles, but in that awful darkness I imagined
for a moment that the end had already come, and clung to George with a
cry of alarm.

"We must climb higher, Master Eden," yelled Woodley, his words, though
shouted in my ear, almost drowned in the rush of the back-wash. "We
must climb the rock; there's a ledge above us, if we can only get to
it."

The words had hardly been uttered when, as though to enforce the
necessity of his suggestion, another deluge of foaming surf swept over
the rock, and I heard a clattering, bumping noise, the woeful
significance of which I did not realize at the moment. Groping with
our hands over the surface of the cold, slippery stone, and yelling
directions to each other, though our heads were not two feet apart, we
climbed precariously from one foothold to another till we reached a
ledge some five or six feet above the level on which we had hitherto
been standing. This was as far as we could get, for above us the end
wall of the cave rose precipitously, as though the rock had been hewn
to stand the test of line and plummet.

Weary, wet, and chilled to the bone, in such a miserable condition I
think I would hardly have troubled to avoid a speedy ending to all my
misfortunes if death had presented itself in a less terrible form. But
the fearful churning of that wild water was sufficiently appalling to
cause one to cling with frenzied earnestness to any position of safety;
for to be drawn down in