He stood up, looking at the three young faces. They were all eager; but it was as though a living light glowed in his own dark eyes. He held his gallant head high, the twisted body forgotten. “I’d like to say ‘Thank you,’ only I don’t know how,” he said. “If you hadn’t come, this wouldn’t have happened; and now, whatever comes, I’ll always have it to remember that just once in my life I had a chance of a man’s job.” His light stride carried him quickly across the beach. CHAPTER XVI THE FIGHT IN THE DAWN “The fighting man shall from the sun Take warmth, and life from the glowing earth; Speed with the light-foot winds to run. And with the trees to newer birth; And find, when fighting shall be done, Great rest, and fulness after dearth.” JULIAN GRENFELL. IN the little inlet, shadowed by the high rocks, everything was very quiet. The tide was running out rapidly: foot by foot the smooth boulders came out of the sea, to stand like sentinels until once more the heaving green water should swing back and climb gently until it rippled over their heads. Inch by inch the opening grew, forming the entrance to the cave under the rocks, and the water slid out as though rejoicing to escape from its dark prison within and to seek the laughing freedom of the sea that tumbled beyond the headlands. Overhead a half-moon sailed, now and then blotted out by drifting clouds; and in the East was the faintest glimmer of the coming dawn. But the water of the little bay lay black and formless, and though the sands showed, visible and pale, the shadows that lay about the great boulders were like pools of ink. On the flat rock over the cave Jim and Wally crouched, now and then moving cautiously to keep their tired limbs from stiffening. It was very cold, in the silent hour before dawn. Two hours earlier they had climbed down from above, making use of the scant moonlight or clinging like limpets to the cliff when the clouds blotted out the moon’s faint radiance: glad to arrive at their destination with nothing worse than bruises and torn clothes.