"Lord bless you, no, sir!" replied the boatman; "but the night was not very dark, for that matter. However, as I turned, I heard a bit of a row at the top of the cliff, and I could see two men standing up there close together, one a tall man, t'other a little shorter; and the tall one hit the other twice or three times, and then down he came. I could see him fall back, but after that I lost him, for you see, sir, as he tumbled down the cliff, it was darker there. When they were a-top, they had got the sky behind them; but when he fell, he got into the gloom, and I saw no more of him, till hearing a cry almost like that of a gull, only louder, I ran up as hard as I could. As I came over the shingle near the cliff, I heard a groan or two, and just below the rock I found the young man who is in t'other room, lying with his feet to the beach and his head to the cliff; so, you see, he must have turned right over, once at least, as he tumbled."
"What distance were you from the cliff when you saw the two men quarrelling?" asked the coroner.
"It might be a hundred yards or more," replied the boatman; "perhaps two."
"And did you see them clearly?" inquired the officer.
"Clear enough to see what they were about," answered the fisherman, "but not to see their faces."
"You have said one was tall, the other shorter," continued the coroner; "do you see any one here of the height of the taller one, as far as you can judge?"
The man looked round him, and it so unfortunately happened that Dudley, anxious to hear all the evidence, had taken a step or two forward. The boatman's eyes instantly fell upon him, and pointing him out with his hand, he said, "Much about that gentleman's height, I should think."
"Do you mean to say, that you think he was the man?" asked the coroner, while a slight frown came over Dudley's face.
"No, that's another case," answered the stout boatman. "All that I could see, as they stood and I stood, was, that the one was taller than the other a good bit, and that the tall one knocked the short one over the cliff."
The three succeeding witnesses were of the same class and profession as the first; but they proved nothing more than the finding of the injured man, his insensible condition when they came up, and his death, without having spoken, as they carried him to Brandon House.