"Could a boat have taken her off,
in such weather as this, from those rocks where her footmarks stop?"
The fisherman pointed to the rollers tumbling in on the sand-bank, and
to the great waves leaping up in clouds of foam against the headlands on
either side of us.
"No boat that ever was built," he answered, "could have got to her
through THAT."
Sergeant Cuff looked for the last time at the foot-marks on the sand,
which the rain was now fast blurring out.
"There," he said, "is the evidence that she can't have left this place
by land. And here," he went on, looking at the fisherman, "is the
evidence that she can't have got away by sea." He stopped, and
considered for a minute. "She was seen running towards this place, half
an hour before I got here from the house," he said to Yolland. "Some
time has passed since then. Call it, altogether, an hour ago. How high
would the water be, at that time, on this side of the rocks?" He pointed
to the south side--otherwise, the side which was not filled up by the
quicksand.
"As the tide makes to-day," said the fisherman, "there wouldn't have
been water enough to drown a kitten on that side of the Spit, an hour
since.
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