at a moderate distance, the head of the bay. De
Jussac strode rapidly in advance of his companion. His long cloak whirled
in the blast; it flogged his gaunt limbs all set to intense action. He
seemed uplifted, translated--like one in whom the very article of a
life-long faith, or monomania, is about to be justified.

Toiling onward, like driven cattle, they swerved from the road presently
and breasted a sharp incline. Their boots squelched on the sodden turf;
the wind bore on them heavily.

George saw the dancing lanthorn go up the slope in front of him like a
will-o'-the-wisp--stop, and swing steady, heard the loud cry of
jubilation that issued from the withered throat.

"It is true! The moment is realized!"

They stood together on the verge of the upper lip of the fissure. It was
a cliff now, twenty, thirty feet to its base. The lower ground had
fallen like a dead jaw; had slipped--none so great a distance--down the
slope leading to the under-cliff, and lay a billowing mass subsided upon
itself.

De Jussac would stand not an instant.

"We must climb down--somehow, anyhow!" he cried feverishly. "We must
search all along what was once the bottom of the cleft."

"It is a risk, sir. Why not wait till the morning?"

"No, no! now! My God! I demand it. Others may forestall us if we delay.
See, my friend, I wish but my own; and what proof of right have I if
another should snatch the treasure?"

"The treasure?"

"It is our fortune that lies there--yours, and mine, and the little
Plancine's. Do I know what I say? Hurry, hurry, hurry! while my heart
does not burst."

He forced the lanthorn into the young man's hands. He was panting and
sobbing like a child. Before the other realized his intention, he had
flung himself upon his hands and knees, had slipped over the edge, and
was scrambling down the broken wall of lias.

There was nothing for George but to take his own life in hand and humour
his venerated elder. He followed with the lanthorn, thinking of Plancine
a little, and hoping he should fall on a soft place.

But they got down in safety, breathing hard and extremely dirty. Caution,
it is true, reacts very commonly upon itself.

The moment his companion's feet touched bottom, De Jussac snatched the
light from his hand, roughly enough to send him off his balance, and went
scurrying to and fro along the face of the cliff like a mad thing.

"I cannot find it!" he cried, rushing back after an interval--nervous