They had halted a few yards only from the cliff, and the flare cast the shadow of its breast-high fence of tamarisks forward and almost half-way across the creek, and there on the sands, a little beyond the edge of this shadow, stood the child.
They could even see his white face.

He stood on an island of sand around which the tide swirled in silence, cutting him off from the shore, cutting him off from the wreck behind.
He did not cry any more, but stood with his crutch planted by the edge of the widening stream, and looked toward them.
And Taffy looked at George.
"I know," said George quietly, and gathered up his reins.
"Stand aside, please." As they drew aside, not understanding, he called to his mare.
One living creature, at any rate, could still trust all to George Vyell.

She hurtled past them and rose at the tamarisk-hedge blindly.
Followed silence--a long silence; then a thud on the beach below and a scuffle of stones; silence again, and then the cracking of twigs as Taffy plunged after, through the tamarisks, and slithered down the cliff.
The light died down as his feet touched the flat slippery stones; died down, and was renewed again and showed up horse and rider scarce twenty yards ahead, labouring forward, the mare sinking fetlock deep at every plunge.
At his fourth stride Taffy's feet, too, began to sink, but at every stride he gained something.

The riding may be superb, but thirteen stone is thirteen stone.

Taffy weighed less than eleven.
He caught up with George on the very edge of the water.