s for his
sweetheart. This would have been a mean enough act, but it seems a small
thing beside the cruel and murderous deed he would have committed but
for the providential presence and prompt action of Fred Harcourt and
myself.

Fred and I lay low, with our chins resting on our hands, not daring even
to whisper. The dog whined a little now and again, and we heard the
subdued cries of seagulls as they flew off, alarmed in the darkness,
over the sea. Still Deborah did not make her appearance on the top of
the cliff. It seemed a long time that we lay and watched thus, but it
could not have been so long as it seemed.

Then Kermode, without raising himself from watching the climbing girl,
reached back for the gun which he had placed on the ground by his side.
He raised it to the level of his face, resting his left elbow on the
ground, and I heard the click of the hammer as he cocked it. Then I saw
his thumb and finger go into his waistcoat pocket.

"Good God!" I said in a loud whisper, as I sprang to my feet, for I
knew in one awful moment that the villain was feeling for a cap to
discharge a shot in the air above the head of Deborah, who would wake up
at the shock, and fall to the base of the craig in her terrible fright.
So intent was Kermode in his fell design of frightening the girl to her
destruction that he did not hear me, or notice the growl of his dog, or
feel the vibration of our tread as we both bore down upon him. We should
have been too late if it had not been for the life-long habit of the
wretch to secure himself from danger or suspicion. With his finger on
the trigger, all ready to pull, he paused one moment to raise himself
and look about. That moment saved the life of Deborah Shimmin, for the
would-be murderer was the next instant under the knee of Fred Harcourt
and his throat in his grip, while my hand was over the nipples of the
gun. While we were all on the ground together, and the setter dog had a
hold of Harcourt's leg, the tall form of Cubbin, the policeman, bent
over us. I had lowered the hammers of the gun and thrown it to one side
to grasp the dog, for Harcourt would not let go his hold of Kermode's
throat lest he should shout and wake the girl.

"Gag Kermode," I said to Cubbin, as I hit the dog just above the snout
with a stone, killing him by one blow.

Then Deborah Shimmin, holding something in a fold of her nightdress with
one hand, and climbing with the other, came up over the edge of t