The priest, left alone, peered round the corner, shading his eyes
with his soft, white hand, upon which the cold rain pattered. To
the east of him he knew that there were three miles of almost
impassable shore, of unbroken, unscalable cliff. To the west of him
the same. On the one hand Fecamp, five miles away by a cliff path
that none would attempt by night, nine miles by road. On the other
hand Etretat, still further by road and cliff path. Inland a few
farms and many miles of forest. He and Belfort had stumbled over
the fallen telegraph wires as they struggled down the village
street. No; if there was a wreck out there in the darkness, and
men, clinging half-drowned to the rigging, were looking towards the
shore, they had better look elsewhere. The sea, like the wind,
treated Yport as the mouth of a funnel, and a hundred cross currents
were piling up such waves as no boat could pass, though the Yport
women were skilful as any man with oar or sail.

Presently Belfort returned carrying two lanterns.

"I have told her that we will not quit the seawall," he said with a
short laugh.

And straightway they both clambered over the wall and down the iron
ladder to the beach. A meandering, narrow pathway is worn on the
weed-grown chalk from the village to the washing-ground on the
beach, a mile to the eastward, where, at low tide, a spring of fresh
water wells up amid the shingle and the rock. Along this pathway
the two men made their way, the cure following on his companion's
heel. They stumbled and fell many times. At every step they
slipped, for their boots were soaked, and the chalk was greasy and
half decomposed by the salt water. At times they paused to listen,