"For two miles at least we fended off in this way, until we came to
the base of the hill which, from seaward, had appeared so curiously
truncated. As we opened its steep-to sides, they rounded gradually
into a high curve at the skyline, and, at the base, into a foreshore
of tumbled rock through which ran a cleft with still water protected
by sheer rocks--a narrow slit, but worth risking with the wind to
drive us straight through. So I upped helm on the heave of a comber,
and drove her for it, the walls of rock so close on either hand that
twice the end of our short boom brushed them before Farrell, who held
the sheet, could avoid touching. . . . And then, rushed by a heave of
the swell through this gorge, we were shot into a round lake of the
bluest water I ever set eyes on; a lakelet, rather; calm as a pond
except by the entrance, where the waves, broken and spent, spread
themselves in long ripples that melted and were gone.
"You know Lulworth Cove? Well, imagine Lulworth, with a narrower
entrance, its water blue as a sapphire shot with amethystine violet,
its cliffs taller, steeper, hung with matted creeper and, high aloft,
holding the heaven in a three-part circle almost as regular as you
could draw with a pair of compasses.
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