The sight of them was like the sight of shore to one who has been long at sea.

They went up to the back of the cliff, and came upon its high grassy top; the road led through where small houses were thickly clustered on either side.

Caius looked for candle, or fire, or human being, and saw none, and they had not travelled far along the street of this lifeless village when he saw that the road led on down the other side of the headland, and that the beach and the dune stretched ahead of them exactly as they stretched behind.
"Is this a village of the dead ?" he asked O'Shea.
The man O'Shea seemed to have in him some freak of perverseness which made it hard for him to answer the simplest question.

It was almost by force that Caius got from him the explanation that the village was only used during certain fishing seasons, and abandoned during the winter--unless, indeed, its houses were broken into by shipwrecked sailors, whose lives depended upon finding means of warmth.
The cart descended from the cliff by the same sandy road, and the pony again trotted upon the beach; its trot was deceptive, for it had the appearance of making more way than it did.

On they went--on, on, over this wonderful burnished highroad which the sea and the moonlight had laid for their travel.