“The worst that could happen to me,” he thought, “would be that I should be taken; and if I am made prisoner once more, it will only be in the cause of duty—so here goes.”
The darkness favoured him as far as concealment was concerned, but it had its disadvantages. A little way to his left was the edge of the cliff, and Hilary knew that if he were not careful he would reach the shore in a way not only unpleasant to himself, but which would totally spoil him for farther service; so he exercised as much caution for self-preservation as he did to keep himself hidden from his enemies.
There was a well-beaten track, and, following this, he found the descent was very rapid into a little valley-like depression, from the bottom of which came the faint creak of a pulley now and then, with mingled sounds of busy men going to and fro with loads, which they seemed to be, as he judged, carrying up to carts somewhere at the head of the ravine.
He could see very little, the darkness was so great; but his keen sense of hearing supplied the want of sight; and as he lay beside a clump of what seemed to be furze, he very soon arrived at a tolerably good idea of what was going on.
Still he was not satisfied. He wanted to realise more thoroughly the whole procedure of the smugglers, so that if the present attempt should prove a failure he might be in a position to circumvent them another time.
It was a great risk to go any nearer, and it might result in capture, perhaps in being knocked down; but he determined to go on, especially as it grew darker every minute, the stars being completely blotted out by a curtain of cloud that came sweeping over the sky.
He hesitated for a few moments, and then crept on, listening intently the while.
The smugglers were still some distance off, down towards the edge of the lower cliff; and he crept nearer and nearer, till to his horror he found that the clearness of the part about him was only due to the cessation of the carrying for a few minutes, and now a party seemed to be coming up from the cliff edge, apparently loaded, while, when he turned to retreat, he found by the sound of voices that another party was coming down.
His manifest proceeding then was to get out of the track, but, to his horror, he found that he was down in a rift between two high walls of rock, and his first attempt to climb up resulted in a slip back, scratching his hands, and tearing his clothes.
Before he could make a second attempt he was seized by a pair of strong arms and forced down upon his knees; and dimly in the gloom he could make out that he was pretty well surrounded by rough-looking men.