Caius believed that the end of their journey was near;
he looked eagerly at the new land, and saw that there were houses upon
the top of the cliff. It seemed unnecessary even to ask if this was
their destination. Secure in his belief, he willingly got off the cart
at the base of the cliff, and trudged behind it, while O'Shea drove up a
track in the sand which had the similitude of a road; rough, soft,
precipitous as it was, it still bore tracks of wheels and feet, where
too far inland to be washed by the waves. The sight of them was like the
sight of shore to one who has been long at sea. They went up to the back
of the cliff, and came upon its high grassy top; the road led through
where small houses were thickly clustered on either side. Caius looked
for candle, or fire, or human being, and saw none, and they had not
travelled far along the street of this lifeless village when he saw that
the road led on down the other side of the headland, and that the beach
and the dune stretched ahead of them exactly as they stretched behind.
"Is this a village of the dead?" he asked O'Shea.
The man O'Shea seemed to have in him some freak of perverseness which
made it hard for him to answer the simplest question. It was almost by
force that Caius got from him the explanation that the village was only
used during certain fishing seasons, and abandoned during the
winter--unless, indeed, its houses were broken into by shipwrecked
sailors, whose lives depended upon finding means of warmth.
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