“Thank goodness,” he shouted. “I was very nervous about—Where’s Perry?”
Cyril and John Manning, whose faces had lit up with pleasure, now gave him a despairing look, which made him seize Cyril by both arms.
“My boy!” he gasped. “Where’s my boy?”
There was no reply. There was none needed, for the colonel read in their faces what was wrong. He had seen them, too, trying to look down into the misty gulf below, and there was a horrible look of despair in his countenance as he pointed mutely down into the terrible-looking gloom.
Then going right to the edge, he tried to look over, but drew back a little and stretched out his hand to John Manning, hooking his fingers the while.
The old soldier stepped forward. Long discipline and training had made him ready to grasp his master’s wishes, and planting his right foot against a projecting piece of the rock, he hooked his fingers in the colonel’s, and then hung slightly back, giving a little and a little more, till the latter was able to lean right out and gaze down.
It was by this time far lighter, and the mist was here and there transparent, as it came eddying up more and more like the clouds of smoke from a fire, but there was no piercing even the lightest parts; and giving this up in despair, Colonel Campion rose up, made a sign to them to stand firm, and then stepped rapidly in the direction from which they had seen him come.
One minute they saw his figure growing fainter along by the side of the rock-wall, the next he had disappeared in the gloom and mist.
“Let’s follow,” said Cyril, with his lips to John Manning’s ear.
The man shook his head.