noon
An hour later , as though the Fog spirit had been listening and watching , and as though it despaired of its attack on the heart of the prisoners , the smother began to thin ; by the time the tide reluctantly began to free them it had broken up and patches of the blessed blue sky shewed overhead . By the time they reached the point and had a view of the great cliff break-down that would give them release it was fine weather , with a gently heaving sea breaking in beneath a sky of summer . It was as though their troubles were ended . At noon they reached the great break-down and a new form of country . Stretching inland almost to the foothills lay a broad valley , boulder strewn , and looking like the bed of some vanished river . Before them to the west the ground rose from the valley , gently , unbroken , desolate , like nothing so much as the desolate country that borders the Riff coast of Morocco . But it was ease itself compared to the tumble of rocks around and beyond the Lizard Point .