L'Etat in a furious sou'-wester is a sight worth seeing. Possibly some
telescope had been brought to bear on the foam-swept rock when he,
secure in the general bouleversement and cramped with hunger, had turned
the forbidden corner with no thought in his mind but eggs.
Possibly again, it was sheer carelessness on his part, born once more of
the security of the storm and the recent non-necessity for concealment.
However it came about, what happened was that, as he stood in the valley
of rocks examining his dead monster, he became suddenly aware that a
fishing-boat had crept round the open end of the valley, and that it
seemed to him much closer in than he had ever seen one before.
He dropped prone among the boulders at once, but whether he had been
seen he could not tell--could only vituperate his own carelessness, and
hope that nothing worse might come of it.
He lay there a very long time, and when at last he ventured to crawl to
the rocks at the seaward opening, the boat was away on the usual
fishing-grounds busy with its own concerns, and he persuaded himself
that its somewhat unusual course had been accidental.
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