CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
THE FOLLOWING NIGHT.
I have told you who did not know what our coast was like--one high wall of cliffs and hills from six hundred to a thousand feet high, with breaks where the little rivers ran down into the sea, and these breaks, after the fashion of our Gap, narrow valleys that run into the land with often extremely precipitous walls, and a course such as a lightning flash is seen to make in a storm, zigzagging across the sky.
If you do not know I may as well at once tell you what is often the effect of rowing or sailing along such a coast as ours: You may be going along in an almost calm sea for hours, perhaps, till, as you row across one of these valleys or combes, the wind suddenly comes rushing out like an enormous blast from some vast pipe.

All the time, perhaps, there has been a sharp breeze blowing high up in the air, the great wall of rock preventing its striking where you are, but no sooner are you in front of the opening than you feel its power.
Beside this, all may be calm elsewhere, while down the steep-sided valley a keen blast rushes, coming from far inland, high up on the moor, where it has perhaps behaved like a whirlwind, and having finished its wild career there, has plunged down into the combe to make its escape out to sea.
It was just such a gust as this last which suddenly came upon us, raising the sea into short rough waves, and bearing upon its wings such a tremendous storm of sharp cutting rain and hail, that, after fighting against it for some time and feeling all the while that we were drifting out to sea, we ceased rowing and allowed the boat to go, in the hope that the squall would end in a few minutes as quickly as it had come on.
The rush of the wind and the beating and hissing of the rain was terribly confusing.

The waves, too, lapped loudly against the sides and threatened to leap in; and while we glanced to right and left in the hope of being blown in under shelter of the land, we found that the boat was rushing through the water, our bodies answering the purpose of sails.
We crouched down together, not to diminish the power of the wind, but in that way to afford each other a little shelter from the drenching rain.
"It can't last long," shouted Bigley, for he was obliged to cry aloud to make himself heard above the shrieking of the storm.
But it did last long and kept increasing in violence.

The heavens, in place of being of the soft bluish-grey that had been so pleasant when we came out, had grown black, the rain all about us was like a thick mist that shut out the sight of the cliffs, and with it the power of seeing the hissing water descend into the sea for a few yards round, we forming what seemed to be the centre of the mist.
And there we were, drive, drive before the wind at what we felt was quite a rapid rate, till all at once the rain passed on, leaving us wet, and cold, and wretched, and ready to huddle more closely still for the sake of warmth.
But though the rain had passed on, and it was clear behind us as it was dark ahead, while we could see the mouth of the Gap and the lowering cliffs, the wind did not cease, but seemed to be blowing more angrily than ever--with such force, indeed, that we could hardly make each other hear.
There was an unpleasant symptom of danger, too, ready to trouble us, in the shape of the waves, which made the boat dance up and down and then pitch, as it still went rapidly on farther out to sea.
"Ready ?" shouted Bigley, as I sat with my teeth chattering in the piercing wind.
I nodded, for I did not care to open my mouth to speak; and, in obedience to a sign, I held the water while he began to pull round as fast as he could and get the boat's head to the wind.
For a minute or so we were in very great danger, for as soon as we were broadside to the wind the waves seemed to leap up and the wind to strive to blow us over; but by sheer hard work Bigley got her head round, and then we pulled together, with the boat rising up one wave and plunging down another in a way that was quite startling.
Bob Chowne did not speak, only crouched down in the bottom of the boat and watched us as we tugged hard at the oars, under the impression that we were rowing in.

But we soon knew to the contrary.