“Mother of God!” roared the Russian, his gray hair fairly bristling on his head. “You are not going to try that!” But Marguerite, holding to the cable-head, was peering downward for the first of the unequal footholds cut in the rock, and his voice was lost in those of wind and sea. Under her long coat she wore a woolen gown made in a single piece, a handy garment she had hastily put on when she had been roused by the storm, so, merely kicking off her little sodden slippers, and before he could more effectually interpose himself, she was over and already descending, her face to the cliff, her back to the unseen void. Garrassime was a strong man, but no sailor; besides, he was so tall and heavy that to follow her would mean sure destruction for both of them; but he suddenly remembered a fissure that slanted down the cliff-side some two hundred yards further on, and, praying with all his might that she might be spared, he ran for it--bent nearly double beneath the terrible weight of the wind, his heart beating with anguish against his ribs--anguish for her whom he had learned to worship, the dear, sweet, daring, foolhardy little lady of Plenhöel. Through wildly tossing clouds the eastern sky was now showing faintly gray, and the “Gamin” began to see the notches that she touched one after another with her silk-shod feet. She must be half-way now, and, sparing her breath, clinging hard, flattening her little body to the dripping crag, she doggedly continued to crawl down, hearing dully the clang of the tocsin far, far above her head. “Ah,” she suddenly cried, aloud, “I am in the water! The tide must be coming fast!”