them, when, on crossing the hollow already mentioned, he saw her on the
edge of the cliff, close to the pinnacle on which she had stood the night
before; where after standing for a moment, she sank downwards and
vanished, but whether into earth or air, he could not tell. He approached
the place. A blast of more than ordinary violence fought against him, as
if determined to preserve the secret of its favourite's refuge. But he
persisted, and gained the spot.

"He then found that the real edge of the precipice was several yards
farther off, the ground sloping away from where he stood. At his feet, in
the slope, was an almost perpendicular opening. He hesitated a little;
but, sure that the child was a real human child and no phantom, he did not
hesitate long. He entered and found it lead spirally downwards. Descending
with some difficulty, for the passage was narrow, he arrived at a small
chamber, into one corner of which the stone shaft, containing the stair,
projected half its round. The chamber looked as if it had been hollowed
out of the rock. A narrow window, little more than a loop-hole through the
thick wall, admitted the roar of the waves and a dim grey light. This
light was just sufficient to show him the child in the farthest corner of
the chamber, bending forward with her hands between her knees, in a
posture that indicated fear. The little playfellow of the winds was not
sure of him. At the first word he spoke, a sea-bird, which had made its
home in the apartment, startled by the sound of his voice, dashed through
the window, with a sudden clang of wings, into the great misty void
without; and Herbert looking out after it, almost forgot the presence of
the little girl in the awe and delight of the spectacle before him. It was
now much darker, and the fog had settled down more closely on the face of
the deep; but just below him he could see the surface of the ocean, whose
mad waves appeared to rush bellowing out of the unseen on to the shore of
the visible. When, after some effort, he succeeded in leaning out of the