n. It was now growing almost dusk. They had thought of
desisting from their task, when a succession of gigantic rollers, like
the fierce rear-guard of the great army that for so many hours had been
broken to pieces on the sands, was seen approaching.

With a solemn reverberation the first giant toppled over, and swept a
mass of mingled foam and sea-weed up the sands, far past where the wet
and weary little toilers were standing. Knee-deep in the rapidly
returning body of water, they strove with their rakes to arrest some
fragments of the whirling and tangled mass of weeds. But the second
giant was at hand. Checked in its advance by the retreating fragments
of its predecessors, the monster hesitated. And then the two masses of
water clashing together rose up in fierce embrace, while the foam and
spray of their contention was blown by the keen east wind into the
children's faces. But the force of the tide was spent, and the second
wave, though victorious in the wrestle, scarce survived the conflict,
and did not even flow over the children's feet. Elsie, therefore,
sprang forward almost to the spot where the wave had broken, and
brought down her rake into the midst of a huge and tangled mass. The
retiring wave struggled hard to retain its own, so that the child was
fairly drawn out by its force.

"Let go, let go!" cried Jim, as he caught the girl's dress to help her
resistance; "the rake will float in again."

But Elsie was fascinated. She felt at once that the body she held was
solid, though soft and yielding, and so she clung to the long
rake-handle with all her might. The conflict was over in a few
moments. The waters retired defeated, and left upon the sands a dark,
limp, saturated body.

"Come away, come away!" shrieked the boy, as Elsie was cautiously
advancing towards the mysterious object. The girl stood still, and
hesitated a moment, while a vague dread crept over her. What was it
that lay there in the bleak, cold twilight, so still and shapeless, and
yet with such an awful suggestion of life about it? She was lost in
bewilderment when the boy's voice recalled her--

"Elsie, Elsie, mind the wave!"

She had but a moment in which to spring back, as the third giant,
towering above its predecessors, lifted the inert body on its crest,
and flung it contemptuously high up upon the shore. Then the waters
swept back and left the two children shivering alone on the strand:
behind them were the dull,