In a moment the little prisoner took in the full horror of the situation. It was now about half tide, and seven o'clock in the evening. High water would therefore fall between ten and eleven; and it must be nearly two in the morning, she calculated hastily, before the sea had gone down enough to let her cross over in safety. Even then, in the dark, she dared hardly face those treacherous stepping-stones. She must stop there till day broke, if she meant to get ashore again without unnecessary hazard. Cleer was a Trevennack, and therefore brave; but the notion of stopping alone on that desolate island, thronged with gulls and cormorants, in the open air, through all those long dark hours till morning dawned, fairly frightened and appalled her. For a minute or two she crouched and cowered in silence. Then, overcome by terror, she climbed up once more to the first platform of rock, above the reach of the spray, and shouted with all her might, "Father! father! father!" But 'tis a lonely coast, that wild stretch by the Lizard. Not a soul was within earshot. Cleer sat there still, or stood on top of the crag, for many minutes together, shouting and waving her handkerchief for dear life itself; but not a soul heard her. She might have died there unnoticed; not a creature came near to help or deliver her. The gulls and the cormorants alone stared at her and wondered. Meanwhile, tide kept flowing with incredible rapidity. The gale in the Atlantic had raised an unwonted swell; and though there was now little wind, the breakers kept thundering in upon the firm, sandy beach with a deafening roar that drowned Cleer's poor voice completely. To add to her misfortunes, fog began to drift slowly with the breeze from seaward. It was getting dark too, and the rocks were damp. Overhead the gulls screamed loud as they flapped and circled above her. In an agony of despair, Cleer sat down all unnerved on the topmost crag. She began to cry to herself. It was all up now. She knew she must stop there alone till morning. CHAPTER VII. PERIL BY LAND. The Trevennacks dined in their lodgings at Gunwalloe at half-past seven. But in the rough open-air life of summer visitors on the Cornish coast, meals as a rule are very movable feasts; and Michael Trevennack wasn't particularly alarmed when he reached home that evening to find Cleer hadn't returned before him. They had missed one another, somehow, among the tangled paths that led down the gully; an easy enough thing to do between those big boulders and bramble-bushes; and it was a quarter to eight before Trevennack began to feel alarmed at Cleer's prolonged absence. By that time, however, he grew thoroughly frightened; and, reproaching himself bitterly for having let his daughter stray out of his sight in the first place, he hurried back, with his wife, at the top of his speed along the cliff path to the Penmorgan headland.