“Keep a sharp eye out for everything that might be important.”
“I’ll do that; but suppose I run against a man, or a dog, or anything of that kind; eh?”
“You will have to decide what to do when the emergency arises. I would much rather you would not kill anybody, or be obliged, even, to shoot your gun; but all the same, don’t take any chances. So long. I’ll meet you where I said.”
The route which the detective selected for himself was, of course, the one which he regarded as the most dangerous one.
He had, during the day, both from the deck of the Dolphin and also from the land, later, studied the outward appearance of the castle with great care.
From the sea it had seemed to him that it was impossible to skirt the base of the tower without falling from the cliff into the sea; but from the land side, as they approached the building, before they reached the causeway, he had decided differently.
Nevertheless, he knew that a path around there would be narrow and dangerous, and he preferred to take the risk himself rather than have Kane attempt it. As he made his way forward now, he steadily approached nearer and nearer to the walls of the huge building—that is, the main building; that part of it which extended backward away from the tower and along the neck of land.
The walls rose beside him, grim, silent, forbidding.
He hurried along close to them, and on his left he could hear the roar of the sea, where it dashed against the rocks a hundred feet below him. The edge of that precipice, he knew, was not more than ten feet from him, and the darkness had now become so intense under the walls of the castle that he could barely discern the ground on which he trod.
Suddenly he came to an abrupt stop, face to face with a second wall, which seemed for a moment to bar his further progress; but he quickly discovered that it was merely a buttress of the castle, and he speedily made his way around it, although in doing so he was compelled to approach so near to the edge of the cliff that the slightest misstep would have precipitated him into the abyss below.