I gave myself to it and noiselessly, little by little working towards land, was borne out of hearing.
Another ten minutes and my feet touched bottom.

I pulled myself out upon a weed-covered rock, and along it to a slate-strewn foreshore overhung by a low cliff of shale, grey and glimmering in the darkness.

But even in the darkness a ridge of harder rock showed me a likely way.

I remembered that the cliff hereabouts was of no great height and scalable in a score of places.

Very cautiously, and sometimes sitting and straddling the ridge while my fingers sought a new grip, I mounted to the edge of a heathery down; and there, after pricking myself sorely among the furze-bushes that guarded it, found a passage through and cast myself at full length on the short turf.
For a while I lay and panted, flat on my back, staring up at the stars: for the wind had chopped about and was now drawing gently off shore, clearing the sky.