It was well that he had fallen; Harold, thrown forward a few feet, touched the earth upon the edge of the rocky bank that descended precipitously a hundred feet or more to the river—­a few steps further, and horse and rider would have plunged over the verge of the bluff.

Harold, though bruised by his fall, was not considerably hurt; without hesitation, he commenced the hazardous descent, difficult by day, but perilous and uncertain in the darkness.  Clinging to each projecting rock and feeling cautiously for a foothold among the slippery ledges, he had accomplished half the distance and could already hear the light plashing of the wave upon the boulders below.  He heard a voice above, shouting:  “Look out for the bluff there, we must be near it!”

The warning came too late.  There was a cry of terror—­the blended voice of man and horse, startling the night and causing Harold to crouch with instinctive horror close to the dripping rock.  There was a rush of wind and the bounding by of a dark whirling body, which rolled over and over, tearing over the sharp angles of the cliff, and scattering the loose fragments of stone over him as he clung motionless to his support.  Then there was a dull thump below, and a little afterward a terrible moan, and then all was still.

Harold continued his descent and reached the base of the bluff in safety.  Through the darkness he could see a dark mass lying like a shadow among the pointed stones, with the waves of the river rippling about it.  He approached it.  There lay the steed gasping in the last agony, and the rider beneath him, crushed, mangled and dead.  He stooped down by the side of the corpse; it was bent double beneath the quivering body of the dying horse, in such a manner as must have snapped the spine in twain.  Harold lifted the head, but let it fall again with a shudder, for his fingers had slipped into the crevice of the cleft skull and were all smeared with the oozing brain.  Yet, despite the obscurity and the disfigurement, despite the bursting eyeballs and the clenched jaws through which the blood was trickling, he recognized the features of Seth Rawbon.

No time for contemplation or for revery.  There was a scrambling overhead, with now and then a snarl and an angry growl.  And further up, he heard the sound of voices, labored and suppressed, as of men who were speaking while toiling at some unwonted exercise.  Harold threw off his coat and boots, and waded out into the river.  The dark hull of the schooner could be seen looming above the gloomy surface of the water, and he dashed toward it through the deepening wave.  There was a splash behind him and soon he could hear the puffing and short breathing of a swimming dog.  He was then up to his arm-pits in the water, and a few yards further would bring him off his footing.  He determined to wait the onset there, while he could yet stand firm upon the shelving bottom.  He had not long to wait.  The bloodhound made directly for him; he could see