Everything was secure. After one glance in the dusk, he returned to the inner court, and climbing to the outer western wall of the castle by the help of a broken turret staircase and the branches of one of the trees which had sprung up in what once were rooms, he leaned over the broken battlements and whistled softly. The trees grew tall and thick outside the walls on this side, and the ivy clung to the ruins with the strong clasp of a couple of centuries. Amid the mass of foliage Rees could not for several minutes distinguish the two men’s figures in the obscurity far below him, though he could hear their voices softly answering him. Assured that all was safe, and that they were ready, he made one end of the rope he carried fast to one of the iron bars used in the building of the castle, which time and weather had laid bare, and threw the other end over the wall. “All right!” said Sep’s voice in a husky whisper. The strong, gnarled branches of the ivy afforded such a firm support to the feet that Sep, who, like most ne’er-do-weels, had had a short spell of the sea, found no difficulty in climbing up, by the aid of the rope, very quickly. Then they hissed out “All right!” to Amos, watching below, and taking the rope with them descended to the scene of their search. “Why doesn’t Goodhare come too?” asked Rees, in a low voice. “He could get up quite as well as you, and we shall want all the help we can.” Sep uttered his mincing little laugh. “Because our friend prefers leaving the risk to us, and doesn’t consider that sharing terms need begin until the profits roll in,” said he. Sep had the blessing of shrewdness and the curse of never being able to profit by it. “What risk?” “The risk of being found out, and the risk of losing our limbs or our lives. If Lord Hugh really did lose his life down there, you know, why shouldn’t we?” “And supposing you and I choose to say--‘No risk, no profit’?” “Then he would choose to tell the earl all about it, and you and I would look very small.” Rees walked on in silence. He was beginning to see some of the disadvantages of having a rogue for a partner. At sight of the grating, however, when they had removed the covering, everything but the excitement of the search went out of his head. Not heeding Sep’s admonitions to be careful, he lighted the lantern, and went down the steps with so much haste that at the bottom he slipped, and found himself sitting in the mud on the floor of the little chamber, close to the mouth of the drain-pipe.