'When you get out,' said she, smiling faintly, 'you will have had enough of the Devil's Walk.' 'I shall thank God for my escape, madam,' cried he, with real fervour, 'if it is only for your preservation. May I venture to ask the name of the good and heroic lady who has come at the risk of her life to release a man from a living tomb?' 'My name is Ada Conway,' she answered. He stood up and made her a low bow. 'My father is Commander Conway, late of the Royal Navy--what he will think--what he will fear--the fruitless searches he will be making--I am his only child--he will suppose I have been overtaken by the tide and drowned. Yet they should still be looking for me there,' she exclaimed, gazing out to sea. 'No, madam, they wouldn't creep in the surf,' said he; 'they'd watch for the breakers to strand you. Permit me to introduce myself. I am Captain Jackman, late of the ship _Lovelace_, which arrived home a week or two ago. I left her, and having heard much of these parts, thought I would make a cruise to your neighbourhood, and a pretty cruise it has been.' 'Are you an American?' she asked. 'No. I am supposed to descend from a good old English family.' 'You have had no food since yesterday?' 'Not a pinch of biscuit.' 'Well, God must help us out. He must help us out, for it is too, _too_ awful,' she cried, burying her face. 'If people don't pass to-day, they will come along to-morrow,' said Captain Jackman; 'and I have got the voice of a lion.' Saying which, he stood up and sent 'Ship ahoy! For God's sake, help us,' slinging in ringing echoes across the troubled breast of the sea. 'Ay!' she exclaimed; 'but think what must pass between now and to-morrow.' She looked at her watch. 'Do you know the time?' she inquired. 'By the light in the west, I should say it is not far from six,' he answered. 'It is six,' she said, replacing her watch, 'and we have the night before us.' 'It must be borne,' said the man, with a note of sulky sympathy, clasping his knees, and fixing his eyes upon the sea. CHAPTER II. CAPTAIN JACKMAN. It was about two o'clock in the morning, as they came afterwards to know, when Ada Conway sprang, with a violent ringing shriek, to her feet. She had been sitting close to the sphere in the cliff. Opposite to her squatted the man, apparently in slumber. The disc framed a scene of midnight heavens full of palpitating stars, and slowly moving snow-white clouds sailing northwards, and a corner of moon like a silver spear-head nestling in and visibly departing from the top arch of the orifice. The girl shrieked, and the man also sprang to his feet. 'We are saved!' he shouted. He caught her by the hand, and began to run. In the direction of the steps there was glowing a considerable glare of torchlight, amidst which the forms of several figures were clearly distinguishable, and whilst the pair ran, a voice, loud as a trumpet, came in echoes down through the hollow vault. 'Is Miss Ada Conway below here?'