with irresistible force against the jutting rocks, and finally spending their fury by lashing themselves into a fringe, or belt, of creamy foam which extends as far as the eye can reach. If there be one place more than another to which the grand lines of Gordon, the Victorian poet, are appropriate, that place is Sorrento Ocean Beach. “Oh, brave white horses! you gather and gallop, The storm sprite loosens the gusty reins, Now the stoutest ship were the frailest shallop, In your hollow backs, or your high arched manes.” [Illustration: ships near shore] [Illustration: RESUSCITATION OF ROBERT PONTING.] [Illustration: House near water] CHAPTER III. THE DISCOVERY AND RESUSCITATION OF ROBERT PONTING. “How lovely shines the liquid pearl, Which, trickling from the eye, Pours in a suffering brother’s wound The tear of sympathy.” “’Tis thine to aid the sinking frame, To raise the feeble hand. To bind the heart by anguish torn, With sweet affection’s band.”—_Anon._ On Thursday, the 28th December, 1893, a large number of visitors were, as is usual at holiday times, down at Sorrento. All day a heavy gale of wind and rain had been blowing along the Victorian coast, and visitors were, of course, thereby prevented from enjoying themselves on the ocean beach. Next day, however, the weather was considerably finer, and the sun shone out, although a pretty stiff cool breeze was still coming in from the south, or seaward. Taking advantage of the gleams of sunshine and the receding tide, four young ladies, namely—Miss L. Armstrong, of 397 Station-street, North Carlton; Miss E. Duggin, of St. Belades, Kasouka-road, Camberwell; Miss K. E. Davis, of 97 Webb-street, Fitzroy; and Miss M. Moorman, of 349 Smith-street, Fitzroy, were down strolling on the only bit of sandy beach there is below the cliffs, when suddenly they came across the body of a partially dressed man lying half-buried in the drifting sand. Although frightened at first, instead of running away screaming at the unwonted sight, as many of their sex at their age would have done, these brave girls, with a promptitude which reflects credit on their heads, as well as their hearts, quickly determined on their line of conduct, and added another proof of the truth of Scott’s opinion:— Oh Woman in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please; When pain and sickness wring the brow. A ministering angel, thou!