Meanwhile the mist was thickening continually, and by the time Gordon had completed his ascent and reached the point from which he had to diverge along the cliff's face, the night had fallen pitch-dark. He stood still for a moment, with his head bent forward, listening eagerly for a sound. Was he too late? Then he heard the scrabbling of boot-nails upon the slab, and a minute after the stamping of feet a few yards away to his left. The noise drove all his thoughts of averting suspicion from his mind. The mere knowledge that his enemy was there filled him; a cry of exultation rose up to his lips and he barely checked it, and crept silently forwards. A thin buttress of rock ran down shoulder-high between the two men, and this Gordon had forgotten. He came upon it unawares as he was moving with outstretched hands, and, understanding that he had traversed the space diagonally instead of in a direct line, he descended a little to round it. As he was doing this he heard the spirt of a match. There was not a breath of wind, and the tiny flame burnt steadily, throwing out a brown light upon the mirky gloom. To Gordon it seemed blood-red. He paused and waited for the match to blow out. Instead of that, however, it grew brighter, and he remembered that Hawke carried a lanthorn. For a second he was staggered as by an unexpected blow, and stood thinking. Then he continued his stealthy descent to the end of the buttress. As he turned the corner he drew his knife and crouched like an animal. Hawke was some fifteen feet away, kneeling on the ground by the light and fumbling a small bottle clumsily in his frozen hands. Gordon measured the intervening space with his eye, and chose the point between Hawke's shoulders, where he meant to strike, gently swaying his body to and fro the while in preparation for a spring. As he threw his weight backwards, however, for the last time, his heel slipped on a loose stone and sent it echoing behind him down the crags. "Who is that?" cried Hawke, lifting the lanthorn and standing upright. Gordon stepped forward on the instant, slipping his knife with its open blade into his pocket, and the flame of the lanthorn encircled them both in a little ring of light. CHAPTER IX "You!" cried Hawke. The wall of the rock made a right angle behind him, and he backed into the corner of it, fronting Gordon with the lanthorn held aloft between them. There was a ring of terror in his voice, and his eyes glanced rapidly round with a hunted look. Gordon saw the look and smiled; for the little platform on which they stood was open only upon two sides, of which the gully guarded one and himself the other.