XVII
And now I was again walking along the sand; but this time not alone. I had my mother on my arm. The sea had ebbed away, had retreated farther still; it was calmer, but its roar, though fainter, was still menacing and malignant. There, at last, rose the solitary rock before us; there was the seaweed too. I looked intently, I tried to distinguish that curved object lying on the ground — but I saw nothing. We went closer; instinctively I slackened my pace. But where was the black still object? Only the tangles of seaweed rose black against the sand, which had dried up by now. We went right up to the rock. . . . There was no corpse to be seen; and only where it had been lying there was still a hollow place, and one could see where the arms and where the legs had lain. . . . The seaweed around looked as it were crushed, and prints were visible of one man's feet; they crossed the dune, then were lost, as they reached the heaped-up shingle.
My mother and I looked at each other, and were frightened at what we saw in each other's faces. . . .
232
