“And do you like to be always in the sea, Old Bill?” asked Martin.

“Ho, ho, ho!” laughed the monster.  “That’s a good un, little Martin!  Do I like it?  Well, it’s better than being a sailor man in a ship, I can tell ’ee.  That were a hard life, with nothing good except perhaps the baccy.  I were very fond of baccy once before the sea put out my pipe.  Likewise of rum.  Many’s the time I’ve been picked up on shore that drunk, Martin, you wouldn’t believe it, I were that fond of rum.  Sometimes, down here, when I remember how good it tasted, I open my mouth wide and takes down a big gulp of sea water, enough to fill a hogshead; then I comes up and blows it all out again just like a old grampus.”

And having said this, he opened his vast cavernous mouth and roared out his hoarse ho, ho, ho! louder than before, and at the same time he rose up higher above the water and the black rock he had been leaning on, until he stood like a stupendous tower above Martin—­a man-shaped tower of water and spray, and white froth and brown seaweed.  Then he slowly fell backwards out upon the sea, and falling upon the sea caused so mighty a wave that it went high over the black rock and washed the face of the cliff, sweeping Martin back among the rocks.

When the great wave retired, and Martin, half-choked with water and half-dazed, struggled on to his feet, he saw that it was night, and a cloudy, black sky was above, and the black sea beneath him.  He had not seen the light fade, and had perhaps fallen asleep and seen and talked with that old sea monster in a dream.  But now he could not escape from his position down in the gap, just above the roaring waves.  There he had to stay, sheltered in a cavity in the rock, and lying there, half sleeping and half waking, he had that great voice of the sea in his ears all night.

CHAPTER XVIII

MARTIN PLAYS WITH THE WAVES

After a night spent in the roar of the sea, a drenched and bruised prisoner among the rocks, it was nice to see the dawn again.  No sooner was it light than Martin set about trying to make his escape.  He had been washed by that big wave into a deep cleft among the rocks and masses of hard clay, and shut in there he could not see the water nor anything excepting a patch of sky above him.  Now he began climbing over the stones and crawling and forcing himself through crevices and other small openings, making a little progress, for he was sore from his bruises and very weak from his long fast, and at intervals, tired and beaten, he would drop down crying with pain and misery.  But Martin was by nature a very resolute little boy, and after two or three minutes’ rest his tears would cease, and he would be up struggling on determinedly as before.  He was like some little wild animal when it finds itself captive in a cage or box or room, who tries without ceasing to find a way out.  There may be no way, but it will not give up trying to find