“It’s going to be a difficult job, to get that stretcher down those steps,” said Rolleville. “We’d better help you. At any rate we can light the staircase for you.”
“No,” said the Baron with decision. “It is wiser to separate. So back you get.”
The three of them obeyed without further protest. The Baron lighted a bull’s-eye lantern; and without any delay the two cousins set about the difficult task of getting the stretcher down the staircase.
It proved a long job. The steps were steep and the turnings in the cliff were sometimes so narrow that they were compelled to raise the stretcher right on end to get it round them. The little lamp afforded but a feeble light that illumined but a few steps at a time.
De Bennetot soon lost his temper, and to such a degree that with the natural brutality of a badly brought up boor he proposed simply to “chuck the whole thing down,” that is to say, to push the unfortunate girl, litter and all, through one of the openings in the chalk.
At last they reached the beach, which was composed of a fine gravel, and stopped to recover their breath. A little way off two boats were drawn up side by side. The sea, quite calm, unruffled by the smallest wave, lapped against their keels. De Bennetot pointed out the hole he had made in the bottom of the smaller of the two, which for the time being was closed by a kind of stopper of straw. They set the stretcher on the three thwarts.
“Let’s tie the whole lot together,” said Godfrey d’Etigues.
De Bennetot made a very sensible objection; he said: “And if ever there’s a search, and this boat and stretcher and girl are found tied together at the bottom of the sea, this stretcher will prove damned awkward evidence against us.”
“We’ve got to go far enough out to make it impossible for anyone to recover anything ever,” said the Baron. “Besides it’s an old stretcher which hasn’t been used for the last twenty years. I routed it out from a loft full of lumber. There’s nothing to fear from that.”
He spoke in a shaky, fearful voice that de Bennetot hardly recognized.