There was risk of
being caught by the waves under the hills of the dune, which a horse
could not climb, and, they added, he had already been told who it was
who lived in the sand hollows.
In the face of the sunny morning, Caius could not forbear expressing his
incredulity of the diabolical legend, and his hostesses did not take the
trouble to argue the point, for it is to be noted that people seldom
argue on behalf of the items of faith they hold most firmly. The
spinsters merely remarked that there were a strange number of wrecks on
the sand-bar that led to The Cloud, and that, go where he would in the
village, he would get no sand-pilot to take him across while the tide
was beaten up by the wind, and a pilot he must have, or he would sink in
the quicksands and never be seen again.
Caius walked, with the merry wind for a playfellow, down through long
rows of fish-sheds, and heard what the men had to say with regard to his
journey. He heard exactly what the women had told him, for no one would
venture upon the dune that day.
Then, still in company with the madcap wind, he walked up on the nearer
hills, and saw that this island was narrow, lying between blue fields of
sea, both bay and ocean filled with wave crests, ever moving. The outer
sea beat upon the sandy beach with a roar and volume of surf such as he
had never seen before, for under the water the sand-bank stretched out a
mile but a little below the sea's level, and the breakers, rolling in,
retarded by it and labouring to make their accustomed course, came on
like wild beasts that were chafed into greater anger at each bound, so
that with ever-increasing fury they roared and plunged until they
touched the verge.
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