LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1258, 30 March 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

GKDEAL BY TIME; OR, THE MEMORABLE TRYST. A Story of Two Epochs. BY W. W. FENN. (Continued.) Presently, as though he .had suddenly remembered it, he drew from the breast of his thickly embroidered jacket a small puiselide pocket book, saying a 9 he gave it to her: ' One reason, by the way, for my writing to ask you to come to see me this morning, was that I might restore this to you ; you will rind the whole amount in notes and g Jd. It was a pretty mean trick of mins to borrow it at all; but you knew how i was pressed, aud now you know me so thoroughly, that a little meanness more or less won't weigh. The abominable stuff has been burning ray fingers over since I had it, but it's all ther<% back again, thank Heaven. Ey jingo !' he continued, as a distant military note was heard very faintly, ' there s the trumpet sounding the assemble ; I must get back at :>nce.' They rose, aud beheld iu a second their situation! Steep crumbling cliffs on three sides of them, and an angry rising sea in their immediate front, entirely shutting off the end of the groyne round which they had come into the lis tie bay. tie made light of it at first, saying they could onsily mount over the woodwork where it joined the cliff, and proceeded to clamber up it, holding back his hand to help her to follow him. ' Yes,' he said, as he reached a height sufficient to enable him to look over, ' it's all clear this side; but i* won't be for long. Come along, Jesei?, ve have not a moment to lose; take care how you tread, it's cattily slippery-this seaweed is like ice.' She had given him her hand, and was \\ the act of after him, wh©3 { as he

was just reaching the topmast ridge of the slimy beams, his foot suddenly slipped and he fell backwards with great violence upon the sand. He attempted to rise. 'l've broken my leg, sprained my ancle, or something,' he exclaimed ; 'lean's stand,' and he again sank to the ground. _ She wan by his side at once, bending over him, inquiring, striving to help, making efforts even to lift him ' Try and get back by yourself, Jessie ! lose a moment; you'll see some of our men if yon can yet over the groyne and up the slopes ; call to them for help. I here's plenty of time if you are quick; I cannot move.' Firm of purpose and clear-headed, she hardly hesitated. * But,' she said, 'I must try and get you up higher towards the cliff; you will be drowned if you lie here. Look ; the sea is upon us, even now'—and truly rhe tirst wreath of foam slid up at that moment over the sand to within an inch of the place where he lay. ' But the other side is clear, I tell you, for the present. Never mind me; get over the groyne aid go for help. Sue made a final effort again to lift and drag him higher up ou the ahore. He did what he could to help himself, and thev made a little progress; but at the best he could but crawl, and so much time was occupied with but slight result. A yard or two at the most was gained, and the sea followed tlu-m up foot for'foot ' Go, I tell you ; for God's sake Jessie, go ! On the other side the cliffs slope so gradually that you can gat up them ; here it is impossible,' and he gave a hopeless look at the all but sheer wall risiDg above him. Then she flew to do his bidding, and in a moment had scrambled to the topmost ridge of the groyne. 'Ah ! I am too late !' she cried ; there is deep water here now—deep water all round us, everywhere!' and she called aloud for help, in the hope: that someone on the cliffs ■ above might hear her. But the surges had brgun to moan and shriek, and the wind to whistle, so that her voice vanished into the air even as she raised it! Standing at this elevation, with the angry waters swirling and leaping up at her feet, and with the frowning cliff "immediately above her, she for the first time

realised to the full their danger. For the moment she wa- tempted to spring off, arid wade or swim to the sloping cliffs ; but a look back recalled her to the peril in which he would bo left. Whe dared not quit him, helpless as he was, for again the sea was ad vancing with fearful rapidity upon his posi tion ; and indeed to return to him, she would have to make somewhat of a plonge for it. Through the surge she went, however, without further thought. ' We must get up here ; there is nothing else to be done,' she urged—than a few yards more of vain, painful dragging and crawling, and the limit of the beach was reached. The sticky, spongy, crumbling cliffs, with great boulders of fallen earth at the base, rose before them, but soon became sheer and wall-like, though soft and irregular in places, with tufts of sedgy grass and thistles here arid there, jutting out from the top of diminutive shelves and landslips. The line of high water was marked plainly by tho dangling fringe of bladder-wrack or seaweed, which clung to all the harder and more sta tionary pieces of the earth.

' We can never manage to clamber above that,' he said, pointing to it; 'at least I CSn't, for every movement of this leg gives mo such agony that lam fit to faint. i'ut do you scramble up, Jessie; you will manage to get foothold, though it will be touch and go. There would be no danger but for my helplessness. There now, let go of me and try ! See, that bunch of seaweed to the right, there ! hold on to that ! Now then, steady, so!

She obeyed him with admirable coolness, and contrived just to reach high-water mark. But, turning to look down towards him, she said : ' Bat I'm going no further, though, without you ; you don't suppose Fm going to leave you there ? The tide will be over your head in less than half an hour !'

He was partly leaning—partly seated, on one of the largest masses of fallen earth, and Bhe was down within arm's length of him, and holding out her hand ag iuas she spoke. • Come,' she went on ; 'it will be an awful

struggle, an awful risk, but we may do it, and we must try. You must not mind the pain of your foot; you must use your knee instead.'

She but spoke the truth when she described the struggle and the risk as awful. Inch by inch, like crawling flies clinging to a slippery wall, they scaled the rougher and lower ridges of the cliff, and he at length, as well as she, held on to some of the tougher bunches of the seaweed on the water line.

'lean get no higher,'at length he said despairinglyj 'you might, Jessie dear; your light weight, unencumbered by mine, will enable you to get beyond the danger of being washed away. Where can the men all be, that none of them have been sent to seek me? They saw the way I to->k, and they could come by the top of the cliffs.'

Once more, such efforts as the now fast failing strength of both would allow were made to gain foot or hand hold on a higher level. Wave after wave was sweeping up to within a foot or two of them, but the full force of the Furf was so broken by the groynes that there was no more than a heavy ground swell in that little bay, though the skirts of one of the tremendous <ides or races were swirling along beneath them like a whirlpool. She, still acting a 3 pioneer, by dint of great exertion and care, was in the act of helping him on to a very narrow ledge, which, well above the reaeh of all but the spray, they had decided to mako for, when the earth and grass tufts to which her left hand was clinging began perceptibly to give. He had barely gained the spot, with his bruised and torturing limb, and vvai endeavouring to stretch it clear of his other leg, when he uttered a low cry of agony, his face suddenly blanched, his eyes glazed, and his In ad fell motionkss on her shoulder.

The extra and sudden weight thus thrown upon her was more than her precarious hold would boar. She had just time to put him in a place of safety, by pushing his shoulders far over upon a sloping piece of gnus and of which she was Lively w<thin reach, when the earth gave way beneath her, and she slid like a t-t me down the face of the cliff, and like a stone disappeared in the broken, tearing water below Chapter ll.—Second Epoch. ' Hallo 1 Sergeant-major, see ! yonder's the lieutenant - there, right away down the cliff! see, on the sheer of it th>re ! Bedad, like a dead bird 1 How did he get there ? and however will we get at him ! Ho !by the mother of Moses, but this is an awful day 1 Why, he is dead, surely ! /To be, continued.}