爬回上面

到了底部，除了转身往回爬，别无他事可做。往上爬比往下走慢，也比她预想的更费力气。她停了两次，两次都假装自己是停下来看风景的。

At the bottom there is nothing to do but turn around and climb back up. Going up is slower than coming down and takes rather more of her than she expected, and she stops twice, and pretends both times that she is stopping to look at the view.

在下面一级潮湿的台阶上，有一只帽贝，待在石头上一个浅浅的凹坑里。那凹坑恰好是它壳的形状，因为它多年来一直回到同一个位置，硬是给自己磨出了一个座位。它夜里出去觅食，在黑暗中游荡过几级台阶，每天早上又能找回家，回到那个只容得下它的小坑里。

On one of the wet lower steps there is a limpet, sitting in a shallow dip in the stone. The dip is the exact shape of its shell, because it has been coming back to that same spot for years and grinding itself a seat there. It goes out at night to eat, wanders a few steps in the dark, and every morning finds its way home to a hole that fits it and nothing else.

到了顶上，光线已经转了过来，照出了海峡里的那些岛屿。那是另一个世界。这道悬崖是满是孔洞和洞穴的浅色石灰岩，而那些岛屿是粉红色的花岗岩，堆成一块块巨大而光滑的圆石，像巨人留下的东西，岛上的蜥蜴多得让人难以置信。

From the top, the light has come round enough to show the islands out in the strait. They are a different world. Where this cliff is pale limestone full of holes and caves, those islands are pink granite, piled up in huge smooth boulders like something left behind by a giant, and lizards live out there in numbers you would not believe.

波莉坐在城墙上，风从崖边涌上来，她最后一次低头看那道岩石里的凿槽。将近两百级台阶，一级级手工凿成，穿过悬崖，通向一杯凉水。她沿着海岸向北出发，太阳在她左边。

Polly sits on the rampart with the wind coming up over the edge and looks down at the slot in the rock one more time. Nearly two hundred steps, hand cut, going down through a cliff to a cup of cold water. She sets off north along the coast with the sun on her left.