He found the upward path infinitely more difficult than the downward, and was forced to make a long detour and do some hard climbing that left him spent and sweating, before he again approached the gap in the wall. Pausing here to breathe, a minute or two, he once more peered down at the still-smoking ruin far below. And, as he stood there all at once he thought he heard a sound not very far away to his right.
A sound—a groan, a half-inchoate murmur—a cry!
Instantly his every sense grew keen. Holding his breath he listened intently. Was it a cry? Or had the breeze but swayed one tree limb against another; or did some boatman's hail, from far across the river, but drift upward to him on the cliff?
"Hello! Hello!" he shouted again. "Anybody there?"
Once more he listened; and now, once more, he heard the sound—this time he knew it was a cry for help!
"Where are you?" shouted he, plunging forward along the steep side of the cliff. "Where?"
No answer, save a groan.
"Coming! Coming!" he hailed loudly. Then, guided as it seemed by instinct, almost as much as by the vague direction of the moaning call, he ploughed his way through brush and briar, on rescue bent.
All at once he stopped short in his tracks, wild-eyed, a stammering exclamation on his lips.
"A woman!" he cried.