So I sat there gazing out to sea, glorying in the huge bursting rollers that strained and pounded at the rocks beneath me; for a south-west gale was racing in across the white-streaked waters, dewing my face with the spray in its breath and slapping my hair in heavy, damp tangles against my forehead. Before me lying out at anchor in the heaving sea was the brig that had brought me there; and away to the east the sky was reddening with the coming of the sun. CHAPTER XXI ALL ON THE FIRST OF MAY For a while I sat there in a delicious waking dream. The shadows of the past fell away from me, and the future held no visible menace. Indeed I didn't think of the future. The present was all my concern, or at least only so much of the future as would bring my father back to me. Beyond that I didn't look. Already my schooling in adventures and surprises was teaching me to live in to-day and let to-morrow shift for itself. So much could happen in a single hour that foresight and circumspection were a wasted labour. So I yielded to blissful anticipation, so near as it seemed to immediate realization, and saw no cloud in the sky of my contentment. Even the day was such as I loved. The hallooing of the wind, the bursting of the waves, the salt-laden scent of the racing air, the bounding vitality and keen stinging sweetness of it all, were like a triumphal chant of the blood and the breath. It was as though the earth and sea were living things, and my spirit was exalted at the rapture of their boisterous play. It wasn't immediately that I realized the meaning of certain pebbles and clods of earth that came rolling down the cliff to either side of me. I was too preoccupied to look up all at once. But when a heavier lump came bounding down almost at my elbow I turned to see what the cause of it might be. It was merely somebody climbing down the cliff, and rolling stones at me, either to have a game with me or to attract my attention. I thought probably it was the latter, for when he saw me gazing up at him he stopped and began waving to me; and it looked as though he were shouting, but the wind was in his teeth and I couldn't catch a sound. And then I sprang to my feet and gazed with a searching scrutiny at the waving figure, for it was none other than Worthing. Just for a moment I stood vacantly wondering how he had found me out, but dismissing the question I accepted the fact of his presence, and started scrambling up the sloping track towards him, the great wind heaving me upwards from behind like a huge helping hand. "Why, Worthing!" I panted as I reached him and seized his hand. "Worthing!..." The question I would have put to him was implied in my cry of astonishment. "It's quite simple," he answered me. "I knew where you would go, and I followed."