From the stripe of sandy beach, now nearly covered by the incoming sea, the only path lay round a little moss-grown slope at the base of an enormous rock, from whence it wound upward to the verge of a steep precipice and led to the deep old lane, already described. Over this mossy and angular ledge the angry tide had already rolled its spray, consequently it was too slippery for the footsteps of the affrighted girl, who, after thrice approaching it, finally shrunk back, and ran, with wetted feet, towards the centre of the bay, keeping close to the sheer cliffs, against which the flowing sea was rising fast, and beginning to surge and boom, throwing masses of foam and froth over her whole person, while the scared seagulls and puffins whirled in flights around her. Once or twice a wild shriek escaped Sybil; then her voice began to fail her, and she could only utter prayers that were earnest, deep, and piteous. Wildly and despairingly she looked upward to the summits of the cliffs; they were impending and inaccessible, by their gloomy outline fully illustrating the influence and fury of what is called "the Atlantic drift," which is especially turned into the Bristol Channel, where the rocks, by the waves for ever heaving and rolling in mighty undulations, are worn into concave fronts, and form thus a hopeless barrier to the shipwrecked, and to all who might seek to ascend them. She turned seaward with haggard eyes and wrung her poor little hands; not a boat was near, and nothing now was visible between the horns of the bay save the smoke of some distant steamer, hull-down below the horizon line, as she sped on her way to the coast of Ireland. The flowing tide was above Sybil's ankles now; she knew that at high water it would mount to several feet, and that ere long her drowned corse should be dashed and battered, at the sport of the waves, against those very rocks at which she glanced so despairingly! The man who had seen from their summit and warned her--where was he now, and who was he? He knew her name, and yet had he abandoned her to her fate in that terrible place, with the sea and the darkness closing fast around her; for the sun had set and dun clouds were piled in stormy masses now, where so lately all was golden sheen.