gged mane and forelock were streaming horizontally, besprinkled with
sand. The novelty of the situation, the beauty of the sand-wreaths, the
intoxication of the air, the vivid brilliancy of the sun and the sky,
delighted Caius. The blue of heaven rounded the sandscape to their
present sight, a dome of blue flame over a plain whose colour was like
that of an autumn leaf become sear. Caius, in his exhilaration, remarked
upon the strangeness of the place, but either the prospect was too
common to O'Shea to excite his interest, or the enterprise he meditated
burdened his mind; he gave few words in answer, and soon they, too,
relapsed into the silence that the boy and the pony had all the time
observed.

An hour's walk, and another sound rang in their ears beside the
whistling of the wind, low at first and fitful, louder and louder, till
the roar of the surf was deafening. Then they came to the brink and
heard all the notes of which the chords of its more distant music had
been composed, the gasping sob of the under tow, the rush of the lifting
wave as it upreared itself high, the silken break of its foam, the crash
of drums with which it fell, the dash of wave against wave, and the cry
of the foremost waves that bemoaned themselves prostrate upon the beach.

The cart, with its little company, turned into the narrow strip of dark
damp sand that the tide had already left bare. Here the footing was much
firmer, and the wind struck them obliquely. The hardy pony broke into
its natural pace, a moderate trot. In spite of this pace, the progress
they made was not very swift, and it was already four by the clock.
O'Shea climbed to his place on the front of the cart; the boy sprang
down and ran to warm himself, clapping his gloved hands as he ran. It
was not long before Caius clambered into his straw seat again, and,
sitting, watched the wonder of the waves. So level was the beach, so
high was the surf, that from the low cart it seemed that gigantic
monsters were constantly arising from the sea; and just as the fear of
them overshadowed the fascinated mind, they melted away again into
nothingness. As he looked at the waves he saw that their water, mixed
with sand, was a yellowish brown, and dark almost to black when the
curling top yawned before the downfall; but so fast did each wave break
one upon the other that glossy water was only seen in glimpses, and
boiling fields of foam and high crests of foam were the main substance
of a