THE TIDAL WAVE AND OTHER STORIES by ETHEL M. DELL Author of _The Lamp in the Desert_, _The Hundredth Chance_, _Greatheart_, etc. 1919 BY ETHEL M. DELL The Way of an Eagle The Knave of Diamonds The Rocks of Valpré The Swindler The Keeper of the Door Bars of Iron Rosa Mundi The Hundredth Chance The Safety Curtain Greatheart The Lamp in the Desert The Tidal Wave The Top of the World The Obstacle Race ACKNOWLEDGMENT Three stories in this volume, "The Magic Circle," "The Woman of his Dream," and "The Return Game," were first published in The Red Magazine. CONTENTS THE TIDAL WAVE THE MAGIC CIRCLE THE LOOKER-ON THE SECOND FIDDLE THE WOMAN OF HIS DREAM THE RETURN GAME THE TIDAL WAVE CHAPTER I STILL WATERS Rufus the Red sat on the edge of his boat with his hands clasped between his knees, staring at nothing. His nets were spread to dry in the sun; the morning's work was done. Most of the other men had lounged into their cottages for the midday meal, but the massive red giant sitting on the shore in the merciless heat of noon did not seem to be thinking of physical needs. His eyes under their shaggy red brows were fixed with apparent concentration upon his red, hairy legs. Now and then his bare toes gripped the moist sand almost savagely, digging deep furrows; but for the most part he sat in solid contemplation. There was only one other man within sight along that sunny stretch of sand--a small, dark man with a shaggy, speckled beard and quick, twinkling eyes. He was at work upon a tangled length of tarred rope, pulling and twisting with much energy and deftness to straighten out the coil, so that it leaped and writhed in his hands like a living thing. He whistled over the job cheerily and tunelessly, glancing now and again with a keen, birdlike intelligence towards the motionless figure twenty yards away that sat with bent head broiling in the sun. His task seemed a hopeless one, but he tackled it as if he enjoyed it. His brown hands worked with a will. He was plainly one to make the best of things, and not to be lightly discouraged--a man of resolution, as the coxswain of the Spear Point lifeboat needed to be. After ten minutes of unremitting toil he very suddenly ceased to whistle and sent a brisk hail across the stretch of sand that intervened between himself and the solitary fisherman on the edge of the boat. "Hi--Rufus--Rufus--ahoy!" The fiery red head turned in his direction without either alacrity or interest. The fixed eyes came out of their trance-like study and took in the blue-jerseyed, energetic figure that worked so actively at the knotted hemp. There was something rather wonderful about those eyes. They were of the deep, intense blue of a spirit-fed flame--the blue of the ocean when a storm broods below the horizon. He made no verbal answer to the hail; only after a moment or two he got slowly to his feet and began leisurely to cross the sand.