If the beach had been hard, they
must infallibly have been ground to powder or beaten to jelly by the
colossal force of those gigantic blows. Fortunately it was yielding,
smooth, and clay-like, and received them almost as a layer of moist
plaster of Paris might have done, or they would have stood no chance at
all for their lives in that desperate battle with the blind and frantic
forces of unrelenting nature.
No man who has not himself seen the surf break on one of these
far-southern coral shores can form any idea in his own mind of the terror
and horror of the situation. The water, as it reaches the beach, rears
itself aloft for a second into a huge upright wall, which, advancing
slowly, curls over at last in a hollow circle, and pounds down upon the
sand or reef with all the crushing force of some enormous sledge-hammer.
But after the fourth assault, Felix felt himself flung up high and dry by
the wave, as one may sometimes see a bit of light reed or pith flung up
some distance ahead by an advancing tide on the beach in England. In an
instant he steadied himself and staggered to his feet. Torn and bruised
as he was by the pummelling of the billows, he looked eagerly into the
water in search of his companion. The next wave flung up Muriel, as the
last had flung himself. He bent over her with a panting heart as she lay
there, insensible, on the long white shore.
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