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waves.
    With the storm came an immense amount of rain, falling in sheets slanting eastward. For it to speed over the last portion of the bay took only a fragment of time, and then the storm was striking Pentaquod, descending on him in a fury he had not witnessed before. Great jagged flashes of lightning tore through the sky, followed almost instantly by shattering claps of thunder; there was no echo, for the world was drowned in rain. Winds of extraordinary power ripped along the surface of the bay, lashing it into waves of pounding force.
    But Pentaquod was not afraid of the storm, and next morning, when it had passed and he surveyed his island, he did not find the damage excessive. He had seen storms before, rather violent ones which swept down the river valley of his home, and although this one had been swifter and more thunderous, it was merely an exaggeration of what he had long known. The trees knocked down were larger than any he had seen go down in the north, and that was about it. If storms on the island were no worse than this, he could abide them.
    What was it, then, that disturbed him, causing him to wonder about his new home? After his cursory inspection of the island, and after satisfying himself that his yellow canoe had survived, he behaved like any prudent husbandman and started checking the general situation, desiring to see if any animals had been killed or streams diverted, and as he came to a spot on the northwestern tip of the island, he noticed that the storm, and more particularly the pounding waves, had carried away a substantial portion of the shore. Tall pines and oaks which had marked this point had been undercut and now lay sprawled in the water side by side, like the bodies of dead warriors after battle.
    Wherever he went along the western shore he saw this same loss of land. The tragedy of the storm was not that it had knocked down a few trees, for more would grow, and not that it had killed a few fish, forothers would breed, but that it had eaten away a substantial edge of the island, and this was a permanent loss. Pentaquod, looking at the destruction, decided that he would abandon this island, congenial though it was, and look farther inland.
    Accordingly, he crossed the now-calm river, paddling until he reached the base of a tall cliff which had attracted him from that first day on which he had surveyed the river. It lay due east of the island, and formed a headland with deep water west and north. It guarded the entrance to a fine small creek, but it was the sheer southern exposure which gave the cliff its dignity; taller than five men and topped with oaks and locusts, its sandy composition was so light that it shone for great distances, forming a beacon at the edge of the river. Pentaquod, seeing the crumbling nature of its face, suspected that it, too, might be falling from the action of waves, but when he brought his canoe to its base he was gratified to see that it had not been touched by the recent storm; he judged that it was never menaced because its placement kept it clear of eroding currents.
    There was no sensible way to land at the base of the cliff: where would one beach a canoe or hide it? How would one climb to the plateau above? At the eastern end of the cliff’s river face there was low land, and it was most inviting, but it was exposed, and Pentaquod avoided it. Paddling into the small creek, he inspected the forbidding slope of the northern face and rejected it, too, but some distance up the creek he found low land, safe and well-wooded, with a score of likely anchorages. Choosing one, he pulled his canoe far inland, hiding it beneath a cluster of maples, and began the stiff climb to the top of the headland.
    What a memorable place he discovered: a small plot of flat, open land near the edge of the cliff surrounded by tall and stately oaks and pines. In every direction save east he could see extensively, and his eyes leaped from one spectacular view to another: to the north