Page:Silver Shoal Light.djvu/116

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98
SILVER SHOAL LIGHT

of a woman in a white dress, and she was weeping bitterly. Roger put his hands to his mouth and shouted down the rock, and she heard him above the roar of the surf and held out her arms in a desperate appeal. Roger was a brave lad and not one to see a lady in distress and leave her unaided, so what must he do but prepare to climb down the face of that horrible crag."

"He must have had awfully good sea-legs," murmured Garth.

"He had excellent ones, but, even so, it was a fearful and dangerous thing. There was but little foothold, and Roger clung with his hands and gripped with his knees, catching now at a stunted gorse bush growing from a crack, now at a crumbling niche in the rock. The gulls, fearful for their nests, swooped shrieking past him, and the grinding roar of the breakers was far below. But at last he stood panting on the sand beside the lady, whose beautiful face was as white as her gown. She caught Roger's arm.

"'Why did you come?' she cried. 'Now there will be but another to perish here!'

"'But how were you brought here?' asked Roger. 'Surely, where there is a way in, there must also be a way out.'

"'Alas,' sighed the lady, 'it is an unhappy