"Yes, with a yell."
"What then?"
"I cannot tell what, I believe I shrieked--I cannot remember. I next saw the man running away across the plateau."
"The witness Sarah Ford's evidence would seem to say that he lingered a few moments after firing the pistol--before escaping," interposed the coroner.
"It is possible. I was too terrified to retain a clear recollection of what passed. I remember seeing him run away, and then Sarah Ford came up."
"Should you recognise that man again?"
Miss Thornycroft hesitated. The room waited in breathless silence for her answer. "I believe not," she said; "it was only starlight. I am sure not."
At this moment, an inquisitive juryman spoke up. He wished to know how it was that Miss Thornycroft and the other young lady had never mentioned these facts until to-day, when they had been drawn from them, as it were, by their oath.
"Because," Miss Thornycroft replied, with, if possible, a deeper shade of paleness arising to her face--"because they did not care that their foolish freak of going on to the plateau should come to the knowledge of their friends."
"Glad they have some sense of shame left in them," cried Captain Copp.