the sea-wall, he rolled down the other side into a dyke, where it was
another miracle he didn't get drowned. But he struggled instinctively
like an animal under a net, and this blind struggle threw him out into
a field. He must have been, indeed, of a tougher fibre than he looked
to withstand without expiring such buffetings, the violence of his
exertions, and so much fear. Later on, in his broken English that
resembled curiously the speech of a young child, he told me himself that
he put his trust in God, believing he was no longer in this world. And
truly--he would add--how was he to know? He fought his way against the
rain and the gale on all fours, and crawled at last among some sheep
huddled close under the lee of a hedge. They ran off in all directions,
bleating in the darkness, and he welcomed the first familiar sound he
heard on these shores. It must have been two in the morning then. And
this is all we know of the manner of his landing, though he did not
arrive unattended by any means. Only his grisly company did not begin to
come ashore till much later in the day. . . ."

The doctor gathered the reins, clicked his tongue; we trotted down
the hill. Then turning, almost directly, a sharp corner into the High
Street, we rattled over the stones and were home.

Late in the evening Kennedy, breaking a spell of moodiness that had come
over him, returned to the story. Smoking his pipe, he paced the long
room from end to end. A reading-lamp concentrated all its light upon the
papers on his desk; and, sitting by the open window, I saw, after
the windless, scorching day, the frigid splendour of a hazy sea lying
motionless under the moon. Not a whisper, not a splash, not a stir
of the shingle, not a footstep, not a sigh came up from the earth
below--never a sign of life but the scent of climbing jasmine; and
Kennedy's voice, speaking behind me, passed through the wide casement,