Page:She's all the world to me. A novel (IA shesallworldtome00cain 0).pdf/173

 cut away from the fishing-boat were swept up with every wave. The surf around the rocks was like snow. The water was beaten into seething foam around the boat also; between the billows the long swell was red with the reflection of the fire, but the sea was black as ink beyond the line of the Castle Isle, save where, at the farthest line of wave and sky, a streak of ashen light shone in the darkness.

Danny had coiled the rope from end to end around his waist. Then he stood and waited. He knew that the tide must soon turn. He knew too that, having once begun to ebb, it would flow out at this point as fast as a horse might gallop. But low water never left those rocks dry between which the fishing-boat was jammed. The men aboard of her would still need succor. But help might then come to them from the castle side of the channel.

The crowd knew his purpose, and laughed at it. One grizzled old fisherman took Danny by the arm, and would have held him. But at the first glimpse of the reef that ran across the highest and narrowest point of the strait, the lad shook himself free, and bounded across to the Castle Isle.

"Brave Danny," said Mona, in a deep whisper.

"Brave? Is it brave? Aw, well, it's mad I'm calling it," said the old salt.

There is a steep pathway under the east wall of the castle. It runs up from the shore to a great height above the water. It is narrow enough to be called a ledge, and the rocks beneath it fall well–nigh precipitously. Danny ran along this path until he came to the square