and could penetrate the density
of the fog, white crag succeeded white crag, with innumerable
projections which should have helped to toss a falling and inert mass as
easily as if it had been an air bubble.

Sir Marmaduke tried to penetrate the secrets which the gray and shifting
veil still hid from his view. Beside him lay the Italian knife, its
steely surface shimmering in the vaporous light, there where a dull and
ruddy stain had not dimmed its brilliant polish. The murderer gazed at
his tool and shuddered feebly. But he picked up the knife and
mechanically wiped it in the grass, before he restored it to his belt.

Then he gazed downwards again, straining his eyes to pierce the mist,
his ears to hear a sound.

But nothing came upwards from that mighty abyss save the now more
distinct lapping of the billows round the boulders, for the tide was
rapidly setting in.

Down the white sides of the cliff the projections seemed ready to afford
a foothold bearing somewhat toward the right, the descent was not so
abrupt as it was immediately in front. The chalk of a truth looked slimy
and green, and might cause the unwary to trip, but there was that to
see down below and that to do, which would make any danger of a fall
well worth the risking.

Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse slowly rose to his feet. His knees were still
shaking under him, and there was a nervous tremor in his jaw and in his
wrists which he tried vainly to conquer.

Nevertheless he managed to readjust his clothes, his perruque, his
broad-brimmed hat. The papers he slipped back into his pocket together
with the black silk shade and false mustache, then, with the lantern in
his left hand he took the first steps towards the perilous descent.

There was something down below that he must see, something that he
wished to do.

He walked sidewise at times, bent nearly double, looking like some
gigantic and unwieldy crab, as the feeble rays of the mist-hidden moon
caught his rounded back in its cloth doublet of a dull reddish hue. At
other times he was forced to sit, and to work his way downwards with his
hands and heels, tearing his clothes, bruising his elbows and his
shoulders against the projections of the titanic masonry. Lumps of chalk
detached themselves from beneath and around him and slipped down the
precipitous sides in advance of him, with a dull reverberating sound
which seemed to rouse the echoes of this silent night.

The descent seemed interminable.