CHAPTER 1.VII.
The tide was out; the beach was deserted; lazily flopped the warm sea.
The sun beat down, beat down hot and fiery on the fine sand, baking the grey and blue and black and white-veined pebbles.

It sucked up the little drop of water that lay in the hollow of the curved shells; it bleached the pink convolvulus that threaded through and through the sand-hills.

Nothing seemed to move but the small sand-hoppers.
Pit-pit-pit! They were never still.
Over there on the weed-hung rocks that looked at low tide like shaggy beasts come down to the water to drink, the sunlight seemed to spin like a silver coin dropped into each of the small rock pools.

They danced, they quivered, and minute ripples laved the porous shores.

Looking down, bending over, each pool was like a lake with pink and blue houses clustered on the shores; and oh! the vast mountainous country behind those houses--the ravines, the passes, the dangerous creeks and fearful tracks that led to the water's edge.