"Oh, don't be afraid," she said. "It isn't the first time. I crossed Hadden's Slide once, and that's far worse than this." "You, never having seen this, are of course an authority." "Rude again," she laughed. "Now let me have my way." Shaking his head dubiously, he allowed her that privilege. But more than once as they came suddenly upon a great yawning rift where the path had fallen away, revealing a perfect _abattis_ of jagged rocks beneath, which, although at no great depth, were sufficiently far down to dash either of them to pieces like an egg-shell, in the event of a slip, he began to wish he had never allowed her to come. Olive, however, seemed to revel in the danger. Her face was flushed with the glow and excitement of the adventure, and her dark eyes shone and sparkled with exhilaration. They had attained a height of some fifty feet and were stopping to rest. Roy had been left below, his master having entrusted him with something to keep watch over. Two email craft were tacking to and fro on the dull, leaden waters, at some distance off, and a grey-backed gull or two floated stationary against the wind, which, increasing in threatening puffs as they rounded a projecting angle of the rock, tended not to render their perilous foothold any the more secure. The sky was again growing overcast, and the melancholy and hollow moaning of the waves beneath, swishing and swirling round many a submerged reef, produced a most dismal and depressing effect. Olive, with the dour legend running in her mind, now longed to get away from the place. Her companion seemed in no such hurry. "This is about as far as we shall manage to go," he remarked, scrutinising the rock overhead. The ledge on which they stood was barely a yard in width. Olive, peering over, noted that at that point the drop was sheer, and looking down upon the pointed reefs with the milky foam seething through and over them--shuddered. "Take care!" he warned, holding her hand to steady her. "Better come down now, before you begin to feel nervous." He had felt her hand tremble. "Perhaps we had. Hark! What is that?" she broke off in an awed whisper. Even her companion could hardly repress a start of astonishment. Apparently from within the rock itself came the deep-mouthed voice of a dog. Olive turned as white as a sheet. The terrible spectre of The Skegs was her only thought. To her surprise the other burst out laughing. "Not the ancestor this time," he said. "It's only good old Roy. He's getting tired of his own company down there, and is remonstrating. Possibly, too, he has an eye on some stray crustacean which invites assault, but that he will not desert his post."