uld be in absolute safety. But, on taking a cross-road,
they struck against a band of maddened creatures who told them that
the cliff had fallen, carrying numerous victims with it. All that
these people could think of now was to run to the seashore. With them,
M. Dubosc and his son stumbled down the paths which led to the valley
of Pourville, whose beach lies in a cove some two miles from Dieppe.
The front was obstructed by a crowd of villagers, while others were
taking shelter from the rain behind the bathing-huts overturned by the
wind. Others again, as the tide was very low, had gone down the
sloping shingle and crossed the sands and ventured out to the rocks,
as though the danger had ended there and there only. By the uncertain
light of a moon which strove to pierce the curtain of the clouds, they
could be seen wandering to and fro like ghosts.

"Come, Simon!" said M. Dubosc. "Let's go over there. . . ."

But Simon held him back:

"We are all right here, father. Besides, it seems to be calming down.
Take a rest."

"Yes, yes, if you like," replied M. Dubosc, who was in a greatly
dejected mood. "And then we will go back to Dieppe. I want to make
sure that my boats have not been knocked about too much."

A squall burst, laden with rain.

"Don't move," said Simon. "There's a bathing-hut a few yards off. I'll
just go and see. . . ."

He hurried away. But there were already three men lying under the hut,
which they had lashed to one of the buttresses of the parade. Others
came up and tried to share the shelter. Blows were exchanged. Simon
intervened. But the earth shook once more; and they could hear the
crash of cliffs falling to right and left.

"Where are you, father?" cried Simon, running back to the spot where
he had left M. Dubosc.

Finding no one there, he shouted. But the roar of the gale smothered
his voice and he did not know in what direction to seek. Had his
father been overcome by fresh fears and gone closer to the sea? Or
had he, in his anxiety for his boats, returned to Dieppe as he had
hinted?

At a venture--but is it right to apply this term to the unconscious
decisions which impel us to follow our destined path?--Simon began to
run along the sand and shingle. Then, through the maze of slippery
rocks, hampered by the snares spread by the wrack and sea-weed,
stumbling into pools of water in which the towering breakers from the
open sea had died away in swirling eddies or in lapping waves, he