I knew at last, by the changed voice of the sea on the shore, that I had come to the first beach of shells, and there I turned the boat’s nose in and ran her softly aground.

Here, where the heights of Herm run down in green slopes to the long flat beaches, I drew the boat well up and crept to the other side of the Island, keeping as close to the high ground as I dared.

As soon as I came out on the western side I saw that work was still going on busily in the little roadstead, and so far I was in time.  The rocky heights sloped gradually on that side also.  The schooner had to lie in the roads, and everything had to be conveyed to her by boat.  There was much traffic between her and the shore, and the work was carried on by the light of many lamps.

Now where would they have stowed Carette?  On the ship?  In one of the cottages?  In the natural prison where they had kept me?  The only three possibilities I had been able to think of.  To reduce them to two I would try the least hazardous first, and that was the prison in the rock.

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.