y night to guide
them to the place. He told Ruth's father that he thought he should do
this in case the night turned out very dark. And Billy says that a fire
was made, and that when poor Tom was descending the hill to meet the
boat he fell into the cleft and got jammed between the rocky walls.'

'But would not the two other men make a search for him?'

'God knows, sir! We shall never know. They may have thought that Tom had
been captured, and that the fire had been lit by Ruth's father. But I
think that Billy is right, and that poor Tom, after lighting the fire,
was coming down the hill to meet the boat, when in the darkness he
wandered off the track and stepped into the crack at the widest part of
its mouth, which is right above where we found him. He must have fallen
upon his back and become so tightly wedged in in that awful place that
he could not use his arms to free himself. And then, sir, even if he had
not been stunned, his cries could not have been heard by the other two
men, who, unless they purposely made a search, would not have had any
reason to go within two hundred yards of the spot where he fell.'

Harry shuddered, and then for some time no one of us spoke. 'King Billy'
had been sent off to tell my father of the discovery of the body, or
rather skeleton, which Walter and Harry had at first attempted to free
from the walls of the chasm, but were too overcome to complete the task.

Together we slowly ascended the bluff, and there a surprise awaited us;
for, sitting on their horses, on the brow of the hill, were the dreaded
minister and his convict orderly. They had no doubt seen our bags and
guns lying on the grass, and had ridden to the crest of the bluff to
discover our whereabouts.

Mr Sampson eyed us all very sourly, and scarcely deigned to respond to
our salutations, as one by one we walked past him and busied ourselves
in silence over our impedimenta. No doubt he saw that both Harry and
Walter were very pale, and that Will and I had not yet dried our tears.

'Come here, boys,' he said in his harsh, pompous tones. 'What, may I
ask, is the cause of this grief which seems to be shared by all alike?'
Then, without waiting for an answer, his glance fell upon Walter
Trenfield, who, after saluting him, had turned away, and with averted
face was strapping some of our belongings together.

I saw the clergyman's coarse red face, with its fat, terraced chins,
grow purple with rage as I had seen it once b