The sea battered itself upon the earth, recoiled, laughed, and reared back to gallop in again. It was like the beating of a maul. A ship, a man, a girl could be crunched between wave and stone until ribs broke across. Kintyre strangled in a noisy wild night. He was spewed up again for a moment, scornfully. Spray sheeted in his face. The cold drained him, he could feel how warmth ran out. The sea rolled him over and toned in his skull. Somehow you could swim, he thought. It was only to keep going. Though all the world were smashed on a reef, you could keep going. And there could be victory. He saw the rock face shine before him. The waves pounded him against its roughness. Fog smoked in his eyes. He let the sea upbear him, and took its anger, while he fumbled about. His fingers closed on something, a handhold. His toes sought beneath the surface. He pulled himself out. For a little while he lay on the sloping stone back. The tide covered his feet. Life returned in some measure. He sighed and began to climb. At the peak he looked over. Clayton sat on a small ledge, four sheer yards below him. The ruddy hair hung dark, there was blood matting one side of the long narrow head. Clayton's gun wove about in a seeking fashion, aimed toward shore and then down again. Once he jerked, making an odd little whimper like a lost child, and fired. The sound was flat, nearly lost among rumbling tides. A twelve-foot jump could easily miss that tiny projection--and once fallen into the water below, Kintyre would be Clayton's. But so he would be if he tried to crawl down. He made his estimates, poised, and sprang. His feet struck Clayton between the shoulders. They went over together. It spouted where they hit. A wave swung in from the ocean and climbed the rock in one white burst. Kintyre came up. He stood in four feet of water. Clayton was just arising. Somehow, incredibly, he still had the gun. It lifted, at point-blank range. Kintyre's left arm found the power to chop down. The gun was knocked loose. The sea ate it. Kintyre laid his good hand upon Clayton. Enough.