“Wal, I’m glad to hear that, boys, for it’s likely you’ll be wanted to do some climbin afore we get back.  I used to do somethin in that way; but since I’ve growed old, an rheumatic, I’ve got kine o’ out o’ the way of it, an don’t scacely feel sech confidence in myself as I used to onst.  But come, we mustn’t be waitin here all day.”

At this they started up the path, and soon reached the top of the cliff.

Arriving here, they found themselves in a cultivated meadow, passing through which they reached a pasture field.  After a walk of about a quarter of a mile, they came to the cliff that ran along the shore of the bay, and on reaching this, the whole bay burst upon their view.

It was still a beautiful day; the sun was shining brilliantly, and his rays were reflected in a path of dazzling lustre from the face of the sea.  The wind was fresh, and the little waves tossed up their heads across where the sunlight fell, flashing back the rays of the sun in perpetually changing light, and presenting to the eye the appearance of innumerable dazzling stars.  Far away rose the Nova Scotia shore as they had seen it in the morning, while up the bay, in the distance, abrupt, dark, and precipitous, arose the solitary Ile Haute.

Beneath them the waters of the bay foamed and splashed; and though there was not much surf, yet the waters came rolling among the rocks, seething and boiling, and extending as far as the eye could reach, up and down, in a long line of foam.

Reaching the edge, they all looked down.  At the bottom there were visible the heads of black rocks, which arose above the waves at times, but which, however, at intervals, were covered with the rolling waters that tossed around them in foam and spray.  Nearer and higher up there were rocks which projected like shelves from the face of the cliff, and seemed capable of affording a foothold to any climber; but their projection served also to conceal from view what lay immediately beneath.

Along the whole beach, however, up and down, there appeared no sign of human life.  Anxiously they looked, hoping to see some human form, in some part of that long line of rock; but none was visible, and they looked at one another in silence.

“Wal, he don’t turn up yet; that’s clar,” said Captain Corbet.

“We can see a great deal from here, too,” said Bart, in a despondent tone.

“Ay, an that’s jest what makes the wust of it.  I thought that one look from a commandin pint would reveal the wanderer to our eyes.”

“Perhaps he is crouching in among the rocks down there.”

“Wal, I rayther think he’d manage to git up a leetle further out of the reach of the surf than all that.”

“He may be farther on.”

“True; an I dare say he is, too.”

“There don’t seem to be any place below these rocks, where he would be likely to be.”

“No; I think that jest here he could climb up, as fur as that thar shelf, certain.  He may be old an rheumatic, but he’s able enough to climb that fur.”