midnight
Each has its black field of jagged shark 's - tooth rock which paves the cove from side to side , streaked with here and there a pink line of shell sand , and laced with white foam from the eternal surge , stretching in parallel lines out to the westward , in strata set upright on edge , or tilted towards each other at strange angles by primeval earthquakes ; -- such is the `` mouth '' -- as those coves are called ; and such the jaw of teeth which they display , one rasp of which would grind abroad the timbers of the stoutest ship . To landward , all richness , softness , and peace ; to seaward , a waste and howling wilderness of rock and roller , barren to the fisherman , and hopeless to the shipwrecked mariner . In only one of these `` mouths '' is a landing for boats , made possible by a long sea-wall of rock , which protects it from the rollers of the Atlantic ; and that mouth is Marsland , the abode of the White Witch , Lucy Passmore ; whither , as Sir Richard Grenville rightly judged , the Jesuits were gone . But before the Jesuits came , two other persons were standing on that lonely beach , under the bright October moon , namely , Rose Salterne and the White Witch herself ; for Rose , fevered with curiosity and superstition , and allured by the very wildness and possible danger of the spell , had kept her appointment ; and , a few minutes before midnight , stood on the gray shingle beach with her counsellor . `` You be safe enough here to-night , miss . My old man is snoring sound abed , and there 's no other soul ever sets foot here o ' nights , except it be the mermaids now and then . Goodness , Father , where 's our boat ?