“I will take care,” said he, mechanically.

“Perhaps you would like supper—­some cold meat, or something—­since you have eaten so little, placed in your sitting-room against your return?”

“Yes, yes,” said he, approvingly; “you are right; I shall doubtless be hungry to-night.”  Then he went out into the bleak, black night.

He hung about the harbor as before until near eleven, when all the lights of the little town had faded away, save that at the inn, which was burning for him alone; then he climbed the cliff, and pushed southward along the very path against the dangers of which he had been cautioned.  He walked fast, too, with his gaze fixed before him, like one who has an appointment of importance for which there is a fear of being late.  Presently he struck inland over the down, when he began to move less quickly, and to peer cautiously before him.  All was dark:  the grass on which he trod seemed to be black, until he suddenly arrived at a large circular patch of it which was black, and made the surrounding soil less sombre by contrast.  This was the mouth of a great pit; and he sat on the brink of it, with his face to seaward, and his ear in his hollowed hand, listening.  Nothing was to be heard, however, but the occasional scud of the rain, and the ceaseless roar of the now distant waves.  Far out to sea there was a round red light, which fell upon him at regular intervals, its absence making the place which it had filled more dark than elsewhere.  It had a weird effect, as though some evil spirit was keeping watch upon him, but he knew it for what it was—­the revolving lamp of a light-house.  Presently, in the same direction as the red light, he perceived a white one, which, though moving slowly, was certainly advancing toward him; nor did it, like the other, become obscure.

“He is coming,” said Balfour to himself, with a great sigh.  He had begun to have doubts of the other’s keeping his appointment; though, indeed, it was not yet the time that he had himself fixed for it.  The light came on, quite close to the ground, and with two motions—­across as well as along.  It was that of a lantern, which guided thus the footsteps of a tall, stout man, who bore upon his shoulders a ladder so long that it both projected above his head and trailed behind him.  Balfour rose up, and stood motionless in the path of the new-comer till this light fell full upon him.  “Hollo!” cried the man, a little startled by the white, worn face that so suddenly confronted him, although he had been looking for it.  “Is that you, Mr. Balfour?”

“Yes.  Hush!  There is no need to mention names.”

“Quite true, Sir; but you gave me quite a turn,” remonstrated the other, “coming out of the darkness like a ghost.  This Wheal Danes, at midnight, puts queer thoughts into one’s head.”

“John Trevethick was not afraid of coming here,” observed Balfour.