ved out of a
projecting part near the base of the cliff. It bore simply the initials
W.D. and though the surrounding rocks were thickly covered with seaweed
and barnacles, yet the cross itself was perfectly clean, and bore marks
of recent care. Some singular event had evidently occurred in this
retired and desolate place. I loitered a considerable time in musing and
examining the spot, regardless of the whining and uneasiness of my
Newfoundland dog, Retriever, when I was suddenly and fully aroused by
the sharp echo and plashing of the tide against the rock, within the
entrance of the cove. I now recollected with alarm that it was a spring
flood, and that I had heard the tide sets in on this part of the coast
with extraordinary velocity. I ran hastily forward, expecting to escape
with a mere wetting, along the base of the rocks to an opening which
I had passed about half a mile to the westward. I had just grounds of
alarm. The mouth of the cove as I have already stated, extended some way
abruptly into the beach. On wading to its extremity I found the tide
already breaking in impetuous surf towards the foot of the cliffs, and
it was now so far advanced as to preclude any hope of escape from that
quarter; for the sands shelved in for some way on each side of the
projecting entrance, and if I gained the foot of the cliffs I feared
that I must inevitably be dashed to pieces before reaching the opening.
In the calmest weather on the coast, exposed to all the fury of the
Atlantic, the spring tides come in with a heavy swell; on this occasion
they were aided by the wind, and I had to retreat with precipitation
before an angry and threatening mass of waves, which broke many feet
over the spot I occupied the moment before, with a noise like a
discharge of artillery.

The night was gathering in, and the report of each successive wave,
fraught as it were with my death warrant, struck on my heart like a
funeral knell. Was there no hope of escape in the cove itself? no
difficult path to the rocks aloft? were the questions I rapidly put to
myself. An examination made as well as the darkness of the place
permitted, convinced me that my hopes were vain and transitory. I now
gave way to a sort of momentary despair; every instant was abridging my
chance of life, and the sudden and frightful feeling that you are to be
called on unprepared, to die, rushed on my mind with a choking
sensation. I listened for some time at the entrance of one o