He shrugged his shoulders with another grimace, then, as the foam splashed up over his feet, leaped lightly onto another rock higher than the first, whence it was possible to reach a great buttress that jutted outwards from the cliff itself.
Once upon this, he began to climb diagonally, clambering like a monkey, availing himself of every inch that offered foothold.

A slip would have meant instant disaster, but this fact did not apparently occur to him, or if it did he was not dismayed thereby.

He even presently, as he cautiously worked his way upwards, began to hum again in gay snatches the song that a child's clear eyes had set running in his brain that afternoon.
It was a progress that waxed more perilous as he proceeded.

The waves dashed themselves to cataracts below him.

Return was impossible, and many would have deemed advance equally so.