“I’m afraid so, sir,” answered Eustace. “But we shall have time to get as far as Smugglers’ Ladder,” he added encouragingly, “and I don’t think your son would have had time to get much further than that, if he intended coming back from his walk in fair time. See, it would be about in line with the point where he was last seen, and he was going in that direction.”
They reached the little hollow. Before and around lay a few rocks and boulders half embedded in the springy turf. A couple of hooded crows flew up and winged their flight downward along the face of the cliffs, uttering a harsh croak, and before them yawned the black chasm with its jagged, slippery sides. Both Eustace and Jem Pollock fearlessly gazed down into its depths.
Suddenly the former uttered an exclamation and sprang to his feet. On the very brink of the fissure, hanging to a short tuft of rank, dry herbage, was a piece of thin, black silk cord—such as is used for securing an eyeglass. Closer inspection showed that the grass itself had been violently crushed.
“I think we are getting nearer, sir,” he gently remarked, showing it to the General, who was visibly agitated, but made no reply. “Now, Jem, give us a light here, quick.”
The man obeyed, and forthwith large pieces of burning paper were dropped into the chasm, bringing its rocky facets and roughly-hewn cells and recesses into view to those above. Nothing was visible, however.
“Now, Jem, bear a hand with that belaying-pin; sharp’s the word,” cried Eustace, waxing nautical again in his excitement, as he took the stoutest of the crow-bars from the other’s hand, and looking around for a second, his quick eye lit upon a crevice in the rock, into which the iron bar was promptly driven. “Here! shake out that brace—that’s it. Now. Is it long enough?” anxiously, as Jem Pollock dropped the coil of rope into the chasm to test its length, keeping the other end in his hand.
“Not quite, sir, but the two together will do it, easily. But better let me go down, sir; I understand it better nor you.”
“I daresay you do, but I’m lighter, you see, and you’d make a better hand at working the apparatus up here than I should. Now heave it over!”
“What are you going to do?” asked General Dorrien, who had been a silent witness to these rapid preparations.
“I’m just going quietly down the Ladder, sir,” answered Eustace. “The poor fellow may have got into some place where we can’t see him, and not be able to call out.”