"This'll never do!" he declared, and set himself to ascend a nearby
dune. For a moment he slipped and slid vainly, the dry sand treacherous
to his feet, the brittle grasses he clutched snapping off or coming
away altogether with their roots; but in time he found himself upon the
rounded summit, and stood erect, straining the bitter air into panting
lungs as he cast about for bearings.

Behind him a meagre strip of sand held back a grim and angry sea;
before him lay an eighth of a mile of sand-locked desolation, and then
the weltering bay--a wide two miles of leaping, shouting waves,
slate-coloured but white of crests. Beyond, seen dimly as a wall
through driving sheets of snow, were the darkly wooded rises of the
mainland. In the west, to his left, the blank, impersonal eye of the
light-house, its pillar invisible, winked red, went out, and flashed up
white. Over all, beneath a low and lustreless sky as flat as a plate,
violet evening shadows were closing in like spectral skirts of the
imminent night. But, in the gloom, their little cat-boat lay occult to
his searching gaze.

Quain's voice recalling him, he turned to discover his host stumbling
through a neighbouring vale, and obeying a peremptory wave of the elder
man's hand, descended, accompanied by an avalanche in miniature.

"Better hurry," shouted Amber, as soon as he could make himself heard
above the screaming of the gale. "Wind's freshening; it looks like mean
weather."

"Really?" Quain fell into step at his side. "You 'stonish me. But the
good Lord knows I'm willin'. Whereabout's the boat?"