Elzevir and I had often talked over what was to be done when my leg
should be sound again, and resolved to take passage to St. Malo in the
_Bonaventure_, and there lie hid till the pursuit against us should have
ceased. For though 'twas wartime, French and English were as brothers in
the contraband, and the shippers would give us bit and sup, and glad to,
as long as we had need of them. But of this I need not say more, because
'twas but a project, which other events came in to overturn.
Yet 'twas this very errand, namely, to fix with the _Bonaventure_'s men
the time to take us over to the other side, that Elzevir had gone out, on
the day of which I shall now speak. He was to go to Poole, and left our
cave in the afternoon, thinking it safe to keep along the cliff-edge even
in the daylight, and to strike across country when dusk came on. The wind
had blown fresh all the morning from south-west, and after Elzevir had
left, strengthened to a gale. My leg was now so strong that I could walk
across the cave with the help of a stout blackthorn that Elzevir had cut
me: and so I went out that afternoon on to the ledge to watch the growing
sea. There I sat down, with my back against a protecting rock, in such a
place that I could see up-Channel and yet shelter from the rushing wind.
The sky was overcast, and the long wall of rock showed grey with
orange-brown patches and a darker line of sea-weed at the base like the
under strake of a boat's belly, for the tide was but beginning to make.
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