down there—there was a lovely lakelet at which she refreshed herself with a drink; it was grassy, and there were flowers. But it was stiflingly hot. There was a patch of pine woods here and there, but it was hot even in the shade of the great trees.
She stumbled on in the almost blinding heat, clambering up the other great precipice—the wall of the valley. From the top she looked down, and, seeing again that ponderous cliff, she wondered how she could ever have got up it. Then she lay down on the grass, and in a moment was asleep.
When she awoke, the strong wind was blowing again. It made her almost fly through the cold, salty air. Before her was the long-sought ocean, with the waves rolling and the gulls swooping, diving and screaming. She flew; her feet could not stay still. She was tired no longer—she didn’t feel the smallest effects of her wearisome journey.
Suddenly she heard a sound—the magical sound of the waves as they crashed on the rocks. In they would come, pounding, roaring, breaking upon the shore. The foam and spume would fly back and leap up into the air. Everything sounded strange—stranger than anything Eepersip had ever heard. No words can describe what she imagined. She never had had such a lot of emotions in her head at the same time. She tried to describe
