Overhead the cliff line stretched black as ink against the sky, making the midnight clouds above it light by contrast. Here Brendon saw evidences that the dead weight dragged from beneath had remained still a while, and he observed an impress near it on the herbage, where doubtless a living man had rested after his exertions. There were clots of blood on the grass near this spot, but no other sign visible in the present condition of darkness. Remembering the death of Michael Pendean, Brendon was already reconstructing, in theory, the events immediately under his notice. That Bendigo Redmayne's brother had slain the elder now appeared too probable; and he had apparently proceeded as before and removed his victim--in a sack--for the line on the cave floor below and along the path which Mark had just traversed indicated some heavy, rounded object that did not change its shape as it was dragged along. For two minutes he stood, then spoke. "Where is the path from here?" he asked, and Doria, proceeding cautiously to the east of the plateau, presently indicated a rocky footpath that ascended from it. The track was rough and evidently seldom used, for brambles and dead vegetation lay across it. They proceeded by this way and Brendon directed the other to disturb nothing, so that careful examination might, if necessary, be made when daylight returned. The path elbowed to right and left sharply, ever ascending, and it was not too steep to prevent steady progress. It ended at last on the summit of the cliffs, where, after a barren space of fifty yards, a low wall ran separating ploughed lands from the precipices. But no sight of any human being awaited them and, on the close sward of the summit, footsteps would have left no record. "What d'you make of it?" asked Doria. "Your mind is swift and skilled in these deviltries. Is it true that my master and my friend is a dead man--the old sea wolf dead?" "Yes," said Brendon drearily. "In my mind there is no doubt of it. It is also true that a thing has happened which I should have prevented and a life been lost which might have been saved. From the first I have taken too much on trust in this matter and believed all that I was told too readily." "That is no blame to you," answered the other. "Why should you have doubted what you heard?" "Because it was my business to credit nothing and trust nobody. I am not blaming anybody, or suggesting any attempts to deceive me; but I have accepted what sounded obvious and rational, as we all did, instead of examining things for myself. You may not understand this, Doria; but other people will be only too quick to do so." "You did the best you could; so did everybody. Who was to know that he came here to kill his brother?" "A madman may do anything. My fault has been to assume his return to sanity."