It was exhilarating being tossed about on the gray-green billows, rising and falling among the roaring changing long hollows rolling and always rolling landward, always to the shore. He gave himself up to the rough lull and rocking of it. . . . Hurry me out of sight of the land; Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse; Dash me with amorous wet—I can repay you. . . .

Presently he saw that Cliff was swimming nearby, but farther out, already ahead of him. Now and again he caught sight of the dark wet head, so tawny when dry, drawn rapidly up the slant of a broad green wave to its crest, passing then from sight, to reappear, when the wave had passed, afloat in the hollow of one of the rolling troughs. He swam with grace and power; it was a keen pleasure to see him master the buffeting waves.

But Cliff had had enough. He turned and headed inshore, stretched out flat, threshing violently to keep pace with a racing breaker, then riding it rapidly toward the beach. He shot Grandin a look of happy triumph as he rode past. In another moment Grandin turned back also.

But it was not so easy as Cliff made it appear. In a very short time, much too short for ease of mind, he found it hard going. He kept his eyes fixed on the sandy shore and the people lying about on the beach, whom he saw only intermittently from the tops of breakers, as if a curtain rose and fell, rose and fell, on the view of his goal; the beach seemed as remote as before, regardless of how desperately he fought for progress.

The thing to do was to look away: forget the shore and the distance, whether near or far, and concentrate on the thing to be done, here, now, by no one but himself. He swam on, but easy as possible, relaxed, conserving strength, forgetting fear and fatigue, inching gradually but (he thought) ever more surely and safely home. He bent his head sideways, breathed quietly, and by an effort of will allowed his limbs to attain their maximum reach and strength with the smallest possible strain. When he dared to look again, he was no nearer than before; but what aroused in him the keenest panic was the fact that those on shore—Billie and Cliff, Bill Howard, the other guests, Pete himself dozing on his perch—were completely oblivious of his distress.