"Oh, stop it! save him!" she whispered to me, with white lips. But I shook my head. I could not reach the top of the cliff. And moreover, I had small doubt that Grul's vengeance was just. Nevertheless, had I been at the top of the cliff instead of the bottom, I had certainly put a stop to it. After listening for some moments, with a sort of pleasant attention, to the victim's ravings, Grul lay flat, thrust his head and shoulders far out over the brink, and reached down a long arm. I saw the gleam of a knife in his darting hand; and I drew a quick breath of relief. [Illustration: Grul lay flat, thrust his head and shoulders far out over the brink, and reached down a long arm.] "That ends it," said I; and I shifted my position, which I had not done, as it seemed to me, for an eternity. The victim's screaming had ceased before the knife touched him. But I was vastly mistaken in thinking it the end. "He has not killed him," muttered Mizpah. And then I saw that Grul had merely cut the cord which bound his captive's hands. The Abbe was swiftly freeing himself; and Grul, meanwhile, was lowering him down the face of the cliff. When the unhappy captive had descended perhaps twenty feet, his tormentor secured the rope, and again lay down with his head and shoulders leaning over the brink, his hands playing carelessly with the knife. The Abbe, with many awkward gestures, presently got his limbs free, and the cord which had enwound him fell trailing like a snake to the cliff foot. Then, with clawing hands and sprawling feet, he clutched at the smooth, inexorable rock, in the vain hope of getting a foothold. It was pitiful to see his mad struggles, and the quiet of the face above looking down upon them with unimpassioned interest; till at last, exhausted, the poor wretch ceased to struggle, and looked up at his persecutor with the silence of despair. Presently Grul spoke,--for the first time, as far as we knew. "You know me, Monsieur l'Abbe, I suppose," he remarked, in tone of placid courtesy. "I know you, Francois de Grul," came the reply, gasped from a dry mouth. "Then further explanation, I think you will allow, is not needed. I will bid you farewell, and a pleasant journey," went on the same civil modulations of Grul's voice. At the same moment he reached down with his shining blade as if to sever the rope. "I did not do it! I did not do it!" screamed the Abbe, once more clutching convulsively at the smooth rock. "I swear to you by all the saints!" Grul examined the edge of his knife. He tested it with his thumb. I saw him glance along it critically. Then he touched it, ever so lightly, to the rope, so that a single strand parted. "Swear to me," he said, in the mildest voice, "swear to me, Monsieur l'Abbe, that you had no part in it. Swear by the Holy Ghost, Monsieur l'Abbe!" But the Abbe was silent. "Swear me that oath now, good Abbe," repeated the voice, with a kind of courteous insistence.