nting on the narrow ledge on the far side. I say, we stood--yet
not all. Of the twenty-two men who had plunged, only nineteen
foregathered at the far side.

"'Twas bravely swum," said Ludar, "and though it has cost McDonnell
three brave sons, it has won him Dunluce. I promise you, we shall go
back by land."

I asked him, where next? and he pointed up to what seemed a rock as
sheer and threatening as ever we had met on the other side. Nay, on
this side, the castle itself seemed to hang clean over the edge.

"There is a path, I remember," said he, "by which in old days the
McQuillans came down to the cave. I went up it myself as a boy. See
here."

And he led us a few steps round, as if back towards the cave; where was
an iron spike driven into the smooth rock a little above the edge of the
water.

He reached forward at this, and swung himself out over the water till
his feet rested on a narrow ledge beyond, scarce the width of his boot,
at the water's edge. Above this was a jutting nose of rock by which he
raised himself on to the peg itself, and from that, by a long stride, on
to a safer ledge above.

"Follow me," he cried, "and look not back."

Painfully and clumsily I achieved the perilous stride, and found myself
at the entrance of a crack in the rock, into which the waves below
dashed and thundered, and then, beaten back, shot up in an angry column
high over our heads, descending with a whirl that all but swept us
headlong from our perch.

Up this rift I watched Ludar clamber, losing him now and again in the
shooting foam, and now and again, as the spray cleared off, seeing him
safe, and ever a foot higher than before. How I followed him 'twould be
hard to say. Yet the rock seemed riven into cracks which gave us a
tolerable foothold, the better as we got higher up; and had it not been
for the constant dash of the water, and the darkness, it might have been
accounted passable enough. As it was, but for Ludar's strong arm above
me, I should have lost my feet twice, and in my fall, perchance, might
have carried away one or more of those who followed.

When we reached the top of the rift, a still worse peril awaited. For
now we had to crawl painfully for some distance along a narrow edge on
the face of the naked rock, with little hold for our hands, and, since
the ledge slanted downward and was wet and slippery with the spray,
still less for our feet. Even Ludar, I could see, was at a loss. But
t