He set his teeth and turned his face to the cliff. A light was shining
half-way up it--that must come from the window of Rufus's cottage. He
took it as a beacon, and began to stumble through the howling darkness
towards it. He knew the cliff-path. He had come down it only that night
to make sure that there was no one spying upon them. The cottage had
been shut and dark then, the little garden empty. He had concluded that
Rufus had gone early to rest after a long day with the nets, and had
passed on securely to wait for Columbine on the edge of their magic
pool. But what he did not know was exactly where the cliff-path ran out
on to the beach. The opening was close to the Caves and sheltered by
rocks. Could he find it in this infernal darkness? Could he ever make
his way to it in time? With the waves crashing behind him he struggled
desperately towards the blackness of the cliffs.

The rocks under his feet were wet and slippery. He fought his way over
them, feeling as if a hundred demons were in league to hold him back.
The swirl of the incoming tide sounded in his ears like a monstrous
chant of death. Again and again he slipped and fell, and yet again he
dragged himself up, grimly determined to fight the desperate battle to
the last gasp. The thought of Columbine had gone wholly from him, even
as the thought of his lost treasure. Only the elemental desire of life
gripped him, vital and urgent, forcing him to the greatest physical
effort he had ever made. He went like a goaded animal, savage, stubborn,
fiercely surmounting every obstacle, driven not so much by fear as by a
furious determination to frustrate the fate that menaced him.

It must have been nearly a minute later that the moon shone forth again,
throwing gleaming streaks of brightness upon the mighty breakers that
had swallowed the magic pool. They were riding in past the Spear Point