t
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 awai