Lamenting the loss of time, Mark lent a hand and the launch was soon above high-water mark.  Then, with Brendon in front and the light from his torch upon the steps, they began their ascent.  Save for a drop of blood here and there, the stone stairway gave no clue; but when they had reached its summit and the subterranean path turned to the left, still in a tunnel of the solid rock, they marked on the ascending slope, slippery with percolations from the roof, a straight smear dragged over the muddy surface.  Pursued for fifty yards the tunnel began to narrow and the roof descend, but still the smooth track of a heavy object being dragged upward was evident.  Save for an occasional word the men proceeded in silence, but Brendon sometimes heard the Italian speaking to himself.  “Padron mio, padron mio—­death!” he repeated.

For the last ten yards of the tunnel Mark had to go on his knees and crawl.  Then he emerged and found himself in the open air on a shelf hung high between the earth and the sea.  All was dark and very silent.  He held up his hand to Doria and the two listened intently for some minutes, but only the subdued murmur of the water far beneath reached their ears.  No sound broke the stillness round about.  Under their feet stretched a ledge of fine turf, browned by winter and covered with the evidence of sea birds.  Giuseppe picked up a few grey feathers as the electric torch swept the surface of the plateau.

“For the master’s pipe,” he explained.  “He uses feathers to cleanse it.”

Overhead the cliff line stretched black as ink against the sky, making the midnight clouds above it light by contrast.  Here Brendon saw evidences that the dead weight dragged from beneath had remained still a while, and he observed an impress near it on the herbage, where doubtless a living man had rested after his exertions.  There were clots of blood on the grass near this spot, but no other sign visible in the present condition of darkness.  Remembering the death of Michael Pendean, Brendon was already reconstructing, in theory, the events immediately under his notice.  That Bendigo Redmayne’s brother had slain the elder now appeared too probable; and he had apparently proceeded as before and removed his victim—­in a sack—­for the line on the cave floor below and along the path which Mark had just traversed indicated some heavy, rounded object that did not change its shape as it was dragged along.

For two minutes he stood, then spoke.

“Where is the path from here?” he asked, and Doria, proceeding cautiously to the east of the plateau, presently indicated a rocky footpath that ascended from it.  The track was rough and evidently seldom used, for brambles and dead vegetation lay across it.  They proceeded by this way and Brendon directed the other to disturb nothing, so that careful examination might, if necessary, be made when daylight returned.  The path elbowed to right and left sharply, ever ascending, and it was not too steep to prevent steady progress.  It ended at last on the summit of the cliffs, where, after a barren space of fifty yards, a low wall ran separating ploughed lands from the precipices.  But no sight of any human being awaited them and, on the close sward of the summit, footsteps would have left no record.