When I came to my senses again, I lay still for a little while, trying
to make out where I was, and how I came there. I was stunned and
bewildered. Underneath me were the smooth, round pebbles, which lie
above the line of the tide on a shore covered with shingles. Above me
rose a dark, frowning rock, the chilly shadow of which lay across me.
Without lifting my head I could see the water on a level with me, but it
did not look on a level; its bright crested waves seemed swelling upward
to the sky, ready to pour over me and bury me beneath them. I was very
faint, and sick, and giddy. The ground felt as if it were about to sink
under me. My eyelids closed languidly when I did not keep them open by
an effort; and my head ached, and my brain swam with confused fancies.

After some time, and with some difficulty, I comprehended what had
happened to me, and recollected that it was already past mid-day, and
Mrs. Tardif would be waiting for me. I attempted to stand up, but an
acute pain in my foot compelled me to desist. I tried to turn myself
upon the pebbles, and my left arm refused to help me. I could not check
a sharp cry of suffering as my left hand fell back upon the stones on
which I was lying. My fall had cost me something more than a few
minutes' insensibility and an aching head. I had no more power to move
than one who is bound hand and foot.

After a few vain efforts I lay quite still again, trying to deliberate
as well as I could for the pain which racked me. I reckoned up, after
many attempts in which first my memory failed me, and then my faculty of
calculation, what the time of the high tide would be, and how soon
Tardif would come home. As nearly as I could make out, it would be high
water in about two hours. Tardif had set off at low water, as his boat
had been anchored at the foot of the rock, where the ladder hung; but
before starting he had said something about returning at high tide, and
running up his boat on the beach of our little bay. If he did that, he
must pass close by me. It was Saturday morning, and he was not in the
habit of staying out late on Saturdays, that he might prepare for the
services of the next day. I might count, then, upon the prospect of him
running the boat into the bay, and finding me there in about two hours'
time.

It took me a very long time to make out all this, for every now and then
my brain seemed to lose its power for a while, and every thing whirled
about me. Especially