e boisterous weather of the last few days had
cast away a schooner at a place some five miles from Saint Winifred's,
and Walter Evson had walked with Charlie to see the wreck, and was
returning along the cliff. As they passed the spot where Kenrick was,
they had been first startled and then horrified by those shrieks, and
while they stood listening another came to their ears, more piercing,
more heart-rending than the rest.

"Good heavens! there _must_ be some one down there!" exclaimed Walter.

"Why, how could any one have got there?" asked Charlie.

"Well, but didn't you hear some one scream?"

"Yes, several times. O Walter, do look here!" Charlie pointed to the
traces on the cliff showing that some one had descended there.

"Who could have wanted to get down _there_, I wonder; and for what
possible purpose?"

"Do you see any one, Walter?"

"No, I don't; there's nothing but the sea"--for Kenrick, crouching under
the cliff, was hidden from sight, and now the tide had come up so far
that, from the summit, none of the shingle was visible--"but what's
that?"

"Why, Walter, _it's a straw hat_; it must be one of our fellows down
there; I see the ribbon distinctly, dark blue and white, twisted
together."

"_Dark blue and white_! why, then, it must be some one in the football
eleven: Charlie, it must be Kenrick! Heavens, what can have happened?"

"Kenrick!" they both shouted at the top of their voices.

But the cliff was high, and the wind, momently rising to a blast, swept
away their shouts, and although Kenrick might have heard them distinctly
under ordinary circumstances, they now only mingled with, and gave new
form and body to, the wild madness which terror was beginning to kindle
in his brain. So they shouted, and no answer came.

"No answer comes, Charlie; but there's someone down there as sure as we
are here," said Walter. Charlie had already begun to try and descend
the face of the cliff. "Stop, stop, Charlie," said Walter, seizing him
and dragging him up again, "you mustn't try that--nay, Charlie, you
really _must not_. If it's possible _I_ will." He tried, but three
minutes showed him that, however practicable a descent might be, an
ascent afterwards would be wholly beyond his power. Besides, if he did
descend, what could he do? Clearly nothing; and with another plan in
view, he with difficulty reached his former position.

"Nothing to be done that way, Charlie." At that moment another cr