Its Ways
Of Dealing With Human Beings Are Cunning And Deceitful.
In its most
ferocious moods it seizes a boat, straightway swamps it, and feeds
its pet sharks with the boat's occupants.
If the surf is merely
sky-larking it lets your boat's nose just smell the sand, and then
says "Thought you were all right this time, did you though," and
drags the boat back again under the incoming wave, or catches it
under the stern and gaily throws it upside down over you and yours
on the beach. Variety, they say, is charming. Let those who say
it, and those who believe it, just do a course of surf-work, and
I'll warrant they will change their minds.
There is one thing about the surf that I do not understand, and that
is why witches always walk stark naked along the beach by it at
night, and eat sea crabs the while. That such is a confirmed habit
of theirs is certain; and they tell me that while doing this the
witches emit a bright light, and also that there is a certain
medicine, which, if you have it with you, you can throw over the
witch, and then he, or she, will remain blazing until morning time,
running to and fro, crying out wildly, in front of the white,
breaking, thundering surf wall, and when the dawn comes the fire
burns the witch right up, leaving only a grey ash - and palaver set
in this world and the next for that witch.
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