The pursuers and pursued were unable to see each other, and could only discover their relative positions by pausing to listen, and then only by such sounds as the slipping of pebbles under the feet, the rolling down of some displaced stone, the rustling of brambles and brakes, or the snapping of boughs. The hill became steeper as the robber and his pursuers approached the summit, and they had to grasp the boughs of dwarf oaks to assist them in the ascent, and sometimes to drag themselves over the smooth faces of bare brown rocks, polished by atmospheric influences, clinging to roots of trees which appeared above the soil, and inserting their toes into crevices, or setting them upon projecting points. Near the summit Blodget paused to rest, to listen, and to look behind him; below him he heard the voices of his panting pursuers, the rustling of bushes and brakes, and the grating sound of their footsteps in the loose pebbles. He wiped the sweat from his brow, and then he resumed his clambering progress, still hoping to find a refuge in the wood on the other side. The summit of the hill was sharp and bare, the brown rock coming to the surface uncovered by the scantiest layer of soil, and its bald crest passed, he had little fear of his ultimate escape. A glen, or ravine, the sides of which were clothed with breaks or ferns, led from the summit down to the wood, and the shortest way of gaining access to the glen from the side which he was ascending, was through a gap or cleft in the rocky crest of the hill. In the bottom of this gap laid a large fragment of rock, nearly flat on the upper side, and rounded at the edges by the abrading influence of rain and fog; probably it had originally been disruptured from the crags which arose on either side, and remained in that position for ages. It partly overhung the steep acclivity which Blodget was now clambering up, and by pausing a few moments to recruit his strength, and then clinging with his fingers to the fissures in the rock, he drew himself up until he reached its top in safety. He felt the stone move as he crawled over its smooth flat top on his hands and knees, and as he paused for a moment in obedience to the instinct of self-preservation, he heard some stones in which the large rock was imbedded, roll down the hill, chinking against the pebbles, and bounding onwards, until arrested in their course by the boughs or roots of dwarf oaks and wild lilacs which grew upon its side. It was clear that the impulsion which his weight had given to the stone, had displaced these small fragments, chipped from itself or the crags which it laid between when it first fell there, and he hesitated in the fear that in quitting the stone he should cause it to topple over, and be crushed by its falling upon him.