What had happened to the latter must now be told.  After the signals mentioned had been observed, a man named Duke and Lieutenant Knight, R.N., had also proceeded along the top of the cliff.  It was a beautiful starlight night, with scarcely any wind, perfectly still and no moon visible.  There was just the sea and the night and the cliffs.  But before they had gone far they encountered that mob we have just spoken of at the top of the cliff.  Whilst the four coastguards were exchanging fire from below, Lieutenant Knight and Duke came upon the crowd from their rear.  Two men against fifty armed with great sticks 6 feet long could not do much.  As the mob turned towards them, Lieutenant Knight promised them that if they should make use of those murderous-looking sticks they should have the contents of his pistol.

But the mob, without waiting, dealt the first blows, so Duke and his officer defended themselves with their cutlasses.  At first there were only a dozen men against them, and these the two managed to beat off.  But other men then came up and formed a circle round Knight and Duke, so the two stood back to back and faced the savage mob.  The latter made fierce blows at the men, which were warded off by the cutlasses in the men’s left hands, two pistols being in the right hand of each.  The naval men fired these, but it was of little good, though they fought like true British sailors.  Those 6-foot sticks could reach well out, and both Knight and Duke were felled to the ground.

Then, like human panthers let loose on their prey, this brutal, lawless mob with uncontrolled cruelty let loose the strings of their pent-up passion.  They kept these men on the ground and dealt with them shamefully.  Duke was being dragged along by his belt, and the crowd beat him sorely as he heard his lieutenant exclaim, “Oh, you brutes!” The next thing which Duke heard the fierce mob to say was, “Let’s kill the ——­ and have him over the cliff.”  Now the cliff at that spot is 100 feet high.  Four men then were preparing to carry out this command—­two were at his legs and two at his hands—­when Duke indignantly declared, “If Jem was here, he wouldn’t let you do it.”

It reads almost like fiction to have this dramatic halt in the murder scene.  For just as Duke was about to be hurled headlong over the side, a man came forward and pressed the blackguards back on hearing these words.  For a time it was all that the new-comer could do to restrain the brutes from hitting the poor fellow, while the men who still had hold of his limbs swore that they would have Duke over the cliff.  But after being dealt a severe blow on the forehead, they put him down on to the ground and left him bleeding.  One of the gang, seeing this, observed complacently, “He bleeds well, but breathes short.  It will soon be over with him.”  And with that they left him.

[Illustration:  “Let’s ... have him over the cliff.”]