I had been carried to and from it blindfolded, but from what I had seen from its windows I had formed a general idea as to where it lay. So I crept back half-way towards the shell beach and then struck cautiously up towards the tumbled masses of rock on the eastern side of the Island.
It was chancy work at best, with a possible stumble up against death at every step. But life without Carette—worse still, life with Carette in thrall to young Torode—would be worse to me than death, and so I take no credit to myself for risking it for her. It was hers already, it did but seek its own.
In daylight I could have gone almost straight to that cleft, steering my course by the sea rocks I had noted from the window. But in the dark it was different. I could only grope along in hope, with many a stop to wonder where I had got to, and many a stumble and many a bruise. Stark darkness is akin to blindness, and blindness in a strange land, and that a land of rocks and chasms, is a vast perplexity. I wandered blindly and bruised myself sorely, but suffered most from thought of the passing minutes, for the minutes in which I might accomplish anything were numbered, and they passed with no result.
I was half minded to give up search for the cleft, and steal down to the houses and see what I could learn there. And yet I was drawn most strongly to that cleft in the rock.
If only I could find it and satisfy myself!
My wandering thoughts and wandering body came to sudden and violent pause at bottom of a chasm. I had stepped incautiously, and found myself a mass of bruises on the rocks below. I felt sore all over, but I could stand and I could stretch my arms, so no bones were broken.
I rubbed the sorest bruises into some approach to comfort, and wondered where I had got to. I could feel rock walls on either side, and the rocks below seemed roughly levelled. With a catch of the breath, which spelled a mighty hope, I began to grope my way along, and found that the way sloped up and down. I turned and groped up it. On, and on, and on, and at last I brought up suddenly against iron bars, and knew where I was. And never, sure, to any man was the feel of iron bars so grateful as was the touch of these to me.
I shook them gently, but the gate was locked. I strained my ears for any sound inside, strained them so that I heard the breaking of the waves on the rock below the window at the other end of the rock chamber.
Then I cried softly, "Carette!"—and listened—and thought I heard a movement.
"Carette!" I cried again.