The boy had gone on up where the wall of the dell was lowest, and Caius tramped beside O'Shea, who led the pony.
Once up from the hollow, their eyes were dazzled at first with the flash of the moonlight upon the water.

From the top of the sand ridge they could see the sea out beyond the surf--a measureless purple waste on which far breakers rose and blossomed for a moment like a hedge of whitethorn in May, and sank again with a glint of black in the shadow of the next uprising.
They went down once more where they could see nothing but the surf and the sand-hills.

The boy had walked far on; they saw his coated and cowled figure swaying with the motion of his walk on the shining beach in front.

The tide was at its lowest.

What the fishermen had said of it was true: with the wind beating it up it had gone down but a third of its rightful distance; and now the strip that it had to traverse to be full again seemed alarmingly narrow, for a great part of their journey was still to be made.