k at sea? He turned again up the
lane. He had never seen a wreck. What an opportunity for a poet; and
on such a night too: it would be magnificent if the moon would but
come out! Just the scene, too, for his excited temper! He will work on
upward, let it blow and rain as it may. He is not disappointed. Ere he
has gone a hundred yards, a mass of dripping oil-skins runs full butt
against him, knocking him against the bank; and, by the clank of
weapons, he recognises the coast-guard watchman.

"Hillo!--who's that? Beg your pardon, sir," as the man recognises
Elsley's voice.

"What is it?--what are the guns?"

"God knows, sir! Overright the Chough and Crow; on 'em, I'm afeard.
There they go again!--hard up, poor souls! God help them!" and the man
runs shouting down the lane.

Another gun, and another; but long ere Elsley reaches the cliff, they
are silent; and nothing is to be heard but the noise of the storm,
which, loud as it was below among the wood, is almost intolerable now
that he is on the open down.

He struggles up the lane toward the cliff, and there pauses, gasping,
under the shelter of a wall, trying to analyse that enormous mass of
sound which fills his ears and brain, and flows through his heart
like maddening wine. He can bear the sight of the dead grass on the
cliff-edge, weary, feeble, expostulating with its old tormentor the
gale; then the fierce screams of the blasts as they rush up across the
layers of rock below, like hounds leaping up at their prey; and far
beneath, the horrible confused battle-roar of that great leaguer of
waves. He cannot see them, as he strains his eyes over the wall into
the blank depth,--nothing but a confused welter and quiver of mingled
air, and rain, and spray, as if the very atmosphere were writhing in
the clutches of the gale: but he can hear,--what can he not hear? It
would have needed a less vivid brain than Elsley's to fancy another
Badajos beneath. There it all is:--the rush of columns to the breach,
officers cheering them on,--pauses, breaks, wild retreats, upbraiding
calls, whispering consultations,--fresh rush on rush, now here, now
there,--fierce shouts above, below, behind,--shrieks of agony, choked
groans and gasps of dying men,--scaling-ladders hurled down with all
their rattling freight,--dull mine-explosions, ringing cannon-thunder,
as the old fortress blasts back its besiegers pell-mell into the deep.
It is all there: truly enough there, at least, to madde