"You were right, Arthur," whispered Jack. "Don't look like making up poetry, either. Come along."
Looking out to make sure that the figure was no longer in sight, he slipped over the window-sill, slid down the rain-pipe with a sailor's ease, and in a few seconds stood on the lawn. Arthur hesitated for a moment at the sill, then, plucking up his courage, he let himself over and grasped the pipe. For a few feet he managed well enough; then he lost his head and his grip together, and came down with a rush, to be caught by Jack, who staggered under his weight.
"Well tried, youngster. No damage done?"
"No," replied Arthur, not thinking it necessary to tell that he had two or three grazes on his wrists and legs, and that he had knocked his nose against one of the joints of the pipe.
The two boys hurried down the garden, passed through a gap in the fence made by removing two of the palings, and set off in the reverse direction, toward the front of the house. Jack chose this course almost by instinct; somehow he felt sure that De Fronsac was making toward the cliff. Between this and the house ran the highroad. On reaching the road, Jack looked up and down: it ran straight for at least a third of a mile in each direction. No figure was in sight; yet Jack was sure that unless De Fronsac had actually run he could not have already got so far as a third of a mile ahead; and the road lay so white in the moonlight that no person could move along it without being plainly seen.
"No good going on unless we can see him," said Jack.
"Perhaps he has gone by the beach," suggested Arthur.
"Right. The tide's full, but there's always room to walk at the foot of the cliffs. We'll chance it."
They ran across the road, vaulted the low wall on the other side, and doubled over the two fields separating them from the edge of the cliffs. As they approached the steep zigzag leading down to the shore they went more carefully. They did not immediately begin the descent, but made their way to a jutting portion of the cliff whence they could get a good view of the shore on either hand.
"We can't see him if he's down there," said Arthur, still in a whisper.