For this reason I suppose I ought not to call it Dead Man's Rock, the "Rock" being superfluous, but I give it the name by which it has always been known, being to a certain extent suspicious of those antiquarian gentlemen that sometimes, in their eagerness to restore a name, would deface a tradition.
Let me return to the rock.

Under the neck that joins it to the main cliff there runs a natural tunnel, which at low water leads to the long expanse of Polkimbra Beach, with the village itself lying snugly at its further end; so that, standing at the entrance of this curious arch, one may see the little town, with the purple cliffs behind framed between walls of glistening serpentine.

The rock is always washed by the sea, except at low water during the spring tides, though not reaching out so far as Pedn-glas.

In colour it is mainly black as night, but is streaked with red stains that bear an awful likeness to blood; and, though it may be climbed--and I myself have done it more than once in search of eggs--it has no scrap of vegetation save where, upon its summit, the gulls build their nests on a scanty patch of grass and wild asparagus.
By the time I had crossed the cove, the western sky was brilliant with the reflected dawn.

Above the cliffs behind, morning had edged the flying wrack of indigo clouds with a glittering line of gold, while the sea in front still heaved beneath the pale yellow light, as a child sobs at intervals after the first gust of passion is over-past.