Perhaps a mile from the garrison, the bony ridge to the left of the road began to decline and pull back, leaving in its place a high, grassy plateau. This continued largely unbroken to the Castle, due north, ending to westward in a stark precipice that fell for a thousand feet into the churling seas below. At this same point the road began a long, slow loop to the right, at length bending back to meet the fortified drawbridge at the Castle's eastern gate. Here Stephen turned off the weathered track, moving up into the lateral plain. Michael plodded on behind him, still bound, his wrists raw and aching. So convincing had Purceville's performance been before the garrison---so rough and disdainful his treatment of the prisoner---that Michael himself was not certain how things now stood between them. But a short distance from the precipice the Englishman checked his horse and dismounted, approaching him. "I underestimated you," said the Highlander. To this the other did not reply, but sternly set to work loosing the bonds. "This much I did for you," said Stephen, as the last knot fell away. "What I do from here on is for myself, and for the girl." "I ask no more." Nothing was said about the pistol, which the Englishman did not return. For Michael knew that the time for weapons and fighting was passed. Now there was only the Tower, and the sea. The two mounted, and rode the remaining distance carefully, the horse weary and unsure beneath them. And soon the hard dark walls of the fortress were sharply outlined against the tattered sky beyond. Drawing closer still, Stephen guided the reluctant animal to the very edge of the cliffs upon their left. Far below the seas crashed sullenly against the unyielding stone, or hissed dark warnings upon the sands of a shallow inlet. Michael strained his eyes for any sign of the waiting skiff, but distance and darkness defied him. And soon the great, cornering Tower frowned black and menacing before them. They dismounted, feeling small, perhaps a hundred yards away, in the hollow beneath a wind-riven oak. Together they advanced on foot, through the cold stubble-grass, until they were halted by the rounded bulge of the Tower itself. Immediately to the right of it a dry, deep-cloven moat had been cut into the stone foundation, encircling the Castle on its three exposed sides. The fourth, to westward, was protected by the fall of cliffs behind. But the Tower itself needed no such fortification. Two hundred feet high, its thick and unscalable walls showed no opening for at least half that distance, and then only a staggered spiralling of high narrow windows for archers. The only other feature it showed beneath the crowning battlements, were the lizard- and gargoyle-headed drainspouts, which in centuries past had been used to pour boiling oil down upon the heads of would-be attackers, along with a volley of arrows and a shower of stones.