midnight
Then as she lay awake she could hear now and then a distant roar and once a big bull only a few hundred yards from the cave took it into his head to give tongue with a blast like the first deep `` woof '' of a siren , then came another sound quite close to the cave entrance , a sound like the broken lapping of ripples , interrupted by movements and little snorts and sighs . It was a baby seal sucking away at the teats of its mother . The pair was just outside the cave . A Howling wind that rose at midnight carrying niagaras of rain oversea from the mountains sank at dawn leaving a clear sky and a falling sea . As she came out into the early morning light she could see boosts of spray all along the rocks , but by the time she had tidied things up and finished her breakfast these had vanished and the water was coming in , rolling lazily , and the sounds of the breakers came sleepy and evenly spaced as though ruled by a metronome . The bulls no longer lined the shore , though keeping close to the water they had broken up into groups , yet still the sense of disturbance was there pervading the beach like an atmosphere . The tide was just turning back from the flood , and as she stood watching she noticed the curious fact that not a single bull was taking to the water ; ordinarily , here and there along the rocks , there was always some monster taking a header , some vast bulk beaching in a potter of foam .