They paused and looked up to the sky. In half an hour the day would
come, but in seventy minutes the breakers must beat against the
sheer cliff.

"None has reached the shore alive and with his senses," said
Belfort, looking out to sea. "He would have seen our lights and
come to us, or called if he had broken limbs. It is useless to
search the shore too closely. We shall find them here at the edge,
half in, half out, especially those with life belts, such as we find
any winter morning after bad weather."

He spoke grimly, as one who knew that it is not the deep sea that
must be paid its toll, but the shoal water where the rocks and
quicksands and crabs and gulls are waiting. They made their way
back in silence, and slowly a new grey day crept into life. At last
they could see the horizon and read the face of the water still torn
into a seething chaos of foam. There was no ship upon them. If
there had been a wreck the storm had done its work thoroughly.
Belfort climbed to the summit of a rock, and looked back towards
Fecamp. Then he turned and searched the shore towards Yport.

"There is one," he cried, "half in, half out, as I said. We shall
cheat the crabs at all events, my father."

And clambering down, he stumbled on with a reckless haste that
contrasted strangely with his speech. For, whatever our words may
be, a human life must ever command respect. Any may (as some have
done) die laughing, but his last sight must necessarily be of grave
faces.