LLANDDWYN 19 



after the other rose and, with strange, chopping 

 flight, cleared a breach in a neighbouring sand ridge, 

 and even as they did so, one might note the sudden 

 cut aside with which they changed their course as 

 they passed from view. I never become used to the 

 Nightjar; it remains for me now, even as when first I 

 knew it, a weird, unbird-like creature, one that might 

 brood its wonderful marbled eggs where ruined arch 

 and column strewed the site of some forgotten 

 shrine, or perch at night in roofless aisles to 

 utter its unearthly reel, itself, as it well might seem, 

 the relic of an age with which the canon of its strange 

 music lapsed in common oblivion. 



In striking off from the telegraph wire, which, as 

 we afterwards learned, served upon occasion to 

 summon to Llanddwyn the Newborough portion of 

 the life-boat crew, we made for a long sandy shore 

 appearing on our maps, intending to reach Llan- 

 ddwyn by a straight dash on wheels, if the sand 

 should prove to be in condition. 



That telegraph wire had vengeance upon us. For 

 hours we stormed citadels of sand at the double, 

 dragging reluctant 'cycles to the ridge tops, ourselves 

 to be as impetuously dragged down again by them 

 on the farther slopes. 



There is a fine dispassionateness about an ordnance 

 map. However often and in whatever mood I 

 examined mine in doubt, amazement, or sheer dis- 

 belief, the distance from Newborough to the stretch 

 of sand toward which we were heading, was always 

 the same two miles. Making all allowances for 

 two additional miles performed more or less on the 

 perpendicular, there remained unaccounted for at 



