The avenger hovered over him, gloating. Now at last was come the opportunity--the perfect opportunity, down in these uttermost depths, in the secret night time. The world above slept--and he slept. Never should he waken from that sleep; never should he rouse up in his evil strength to escape out of the abyss and bring ruin to her! Lightly the hammer swung over and downward, measuring the curve of the stroke. It lifted and poised. Again it swung down; and again it lifted and poised. The blow must be certain--there must not be the slightest chance of missing. Each time the heavy steel head stopped a full two inches short of the upturned temple--but each time its shadow fell across the eyes of the sleeper. He stirred. The hammer whirled up, gripped in both hands of the kneeling man. The sleeper turned flat on his back, with his face full to the light. A quiver ran through the tense muscles of the avenger. Had the eyes of the sleeper opened, had their lids so much as fluttered, the hammer must have crashed down. But it was the sleeper's lips that moved. As it were by a miracle of acuteness, the tense nerves of the other's ear caught the whispered words through the roaring of the river--"_Jenny! Son!_" The hammer hurled away out into the swirl of the foam-flecked waters. The avenger flung himself about, face downward on the rock. "God!" he sobbed, in an agony of remorse. "Forgive me, God! I cannot do it! I am weak--unfit!... Not even to save her!--not even to save her!" He writhed in the anguish of his love and rage and self-abasement. He had failed; he was too weak to do the deed. But God--Would God permit that evil should befall her? He struggled to his feet and flung up his quivering hands to moon and stars and black sky in passionate invocation--"O God! You say that vengeance is Yours; that You will repay! Take me, if You will--I give myself! Only destroy him too! Save her! save her!" Again Blake stirred, and this time he opened his eyes. Ashton had sunk down in a huddled silent heap. Blake gazed up at the watchfire on the heights, smiled, and turned over to again fall asleep. CHAPTER XXVII LOWER DEPTHS Beetling precipices shut off the direct light of the moonbeams and left the abyss again in dense darkness long before the coming of the laggard dawn. Blake slept on, storing up strength for the renewal of the battle. Yet even he could not outsleep the reluctant lingering of night. He awoke while the tiny flame of the watchfire still flickered bright against the inky darkness of the sky.