He resolved to keep along the lower slopes and search his way down to the creek’s mouth, when he would have sight of any signal shown along the coast for a mile or two to the east and north-east.  The night was now as black as a wolf’s throat, but he knew every path and fence.  So he scrambled up the low cliff and began to run, following the line of stunted oaks and tamarisks which fenced it, and on the ridges—­where the blown hail took him in the face—­crouching and scuttling like a crab sideways, moving his legs only from the knees down.

In this way he had covered half a mile and more when his right foot plunged in a rabbit hole and he was pitched headlong into the tamarisks below.  Their boughs bent under his weight, but they were tough, and he caught at them, and just saved himself from rolling over into the black water.  He picked himself up and began to rub his twisted ankle.  And at that instant, in a lull between two gusts, his ear caught the sound of splashing, yet a sound so unlike the lapping of the driven tide that he peered over and down between the tamarisk boughs.

“Hullo there!”

“Hullo!” a voice answered.  “Is that someone alive?  Here, mate—­for Christ’s sake!”

“Hold on!  Whereabouts are you?”

“Down in this here cruel water.”  The words ended in a shuddering cough.

“Right—­hold on for a moment!” Taffy’s ankle pained him, but the wrench was not serious.  The cliff shelved easily.  He slid down, clutching at the tamarisk boughs which whipped his face.  “Where are you?  I can’t see.”

“Here!” The voice was not a dozen yards away.

“Swimming?”

“No—­I’ve got a water-breaker—­can’t hold on much longer.”

“I believe you can touch bottom there.”

“Hey?  I can’t hear.”

“Try to touch bottom.  It’s firm sand hereabouts.”

“So I can.”  The splashing and coughing came nearer, came close.  Taffy stretched out a hand.  A hand, icy-cold, fumbled and gripped it in the darkness.

“Christ!  Where’s a place to lie down?”

“Here, on this rock.”  They peered at each other, but could not see.  The man’s teeth chattered close to Taffy’s ear.

“Warm my hands, mate—­there’s a good chap.”  He lay on the rock and panted.  Taffy took his hands and began to rub them briskly.

“Where’s the ship?”

“Where’s the ship?” He seemed to turn over the question in his mind, and then stretched himself with a sigh.  “How the hell should I know?”

“What’s her name?” Taffy had to ask the question twice.

“The Samaritan, of Newport, brigantine.  Coals she carried.  Ha’n’t you such a thing as a match?  It seems funny to me, talkin’ here like this, and me not knowin’ you from Adam.”

He panted between the words, and when he had finished lay back and panted again.

“Hurt?” asked Taffy after a while.