The sand was too fiat. It was cold, also anything could find us there unprotected. Scouts from the Southern Advance maybe, or their navy which couldn’t be far distant from here. A rock pool seemed the only likely shelter. But over there was a cliff, its sides argent with guano, already tinged with richness as the sun began to set. There were no sea-birds on its summit now, it couldn’t be the reason, but it looked friendly, easy to scale, though very little vegetation and that scrubby. Surely there’d be a cave-niche of some kind where we could huddle. I led Urns to the cliff and we started to climb. It was easy, but we found nothing and I was beginning to despair when, nearly at the top, a flight of sunset-coloured butterflies fluttered out, disturbed by our approach, and we saw they’d come from a small murky opening between bastions of honey rock.

I wondered if we could get in there. I found that I could, and that it was big enough inside, though only just, for both of us. But how could I get Urns through the opening? He stood on the ledge outside, looking through at me; then extended his head on its neck, then his breast—he was now in a straight line, and his legs came through fairly easily. He looked smug and nuzzled my shoulder, thereby nicking my already travel-worn cloak. How we were to get away quickly if we had to I didn’t know, but never mind, eh? Here we were and we settled down to sleep in the cramped gloom, I with my head twisted uncomfortably but eagerly so I could watch the sunset.

“Gosh!” I said. Urns, realizing from my tone that I’d not seen danger, did not raise his gaze.

From this height, though blurred by the sunset, there was visible a mass, curvilinear, of uncertain colour, not very high but of endless length, beaming dazzling upon the horizon as though the sun itself were burning forth from it as it sank lower into its heart.

I don’t know what woke me. There seemed no sound above that of the sea—even the winds had cessated. There was a sharp awareness in the air—or a communication from the air to me of .the sense of becoming aware. Urns, unusual in a highly alert brute of prey, was still asleep. I was reminded of the night last autumn when I woke and found a huge shining puma, and Urns still asleep …