There was
light enough to make out what was doing. The sea was running very high,
but with the falling wind the waves came in more leisurely and with less
of broken water, curling over in a tawny sweep and regular thunderous
beat all along the bay for miles. There was no sign left of the hull of
the _Aurungzebe_, but the beach was strewn with so much wreckage as one
would have thought could never come from so small a ship. There were
barrels and kegs, gratings and hatch-covers, booms and pieces of masts
and trucks; and beside all that, the heaving water in-shore was covered
with a floating mask of broken match-wood, and the waves, as they curled
over, carried up and dashed down on the pebble planks and beams beyond
number. There were a dozen or more of men on the seaward side of the
beach, with oilskins to keep the wet out, prowling up and down the
pebbles to see what they could lay their hands on; and now and then they
would run down almost into the white fringe, risking their lives to save
a keg as they had risked them to save their fellows last night--as they
had risked their lives to save ours, as Elzevir had risked his life to
save mine, and lost it there in the white fringe.
I sat down at the top of the beach, with elbows on knees, head between
hands, and face set out to sea, not knowing well why I was there or what
I sought, but only thinking that Elzevir was floating somewhere in that
floating skin of wreck-wood, and that I must be at hand to meet him when
he came ashore.
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