But he chose a spot where there was ample footing at the rampart's base, turned about, backed from the rampart, hung for a moment by his fingers, and dropped to the chosen place, his fall softened by what snow had lodged there. He immediately turned his face towards his distant destination, and peered through the flake-filled darkness for what projections and indentations of the cliff might serve his progress. He thanked his stars for the evidence soon afforded him that his adopted mode of escape was within possibility, perilous though it might be; and then for the falling snow, which shielded him from sight, and for the snow already fallen, which now and then helped him to adhere to the cliff, for the irregularities of the precipice were such that the snow's lodgment had endured here and there on its steep face. These irregularities gave him footing, and so enabled him to proceed. Many times he slipped, tearing his clothes and scraping his skin, but each time he kept his wits and availed himself of the first stopping-place that offered. The descent was a work of hours, so cautiously did he have to proceed, so carefully to pick out his next footing, so often to rest and regain his breath. At last he passed above the blockhouse and battery which together constituted the inner barrier of this end of the lower town. In the light from the blockhouse he could see a sentry pacing from the cliff's foot towards the wharf by the swift river. Some minutes more of effort brought Dick past the top of a stockade, which formed the outer barrier. The exultation of success almost intoxicated him. He let himself slide down what remained of the cliff, heedless alike of the sharp projections and of the Canadian militia housed behind the stockade. As he stood, at last, in the narrow way between river and cliff, restraining an impulse to shout with glee, he took the two sheets of paper, containing his report, from beneath his hunting-shirt, and started forward, loudly whistling "Molly, my Treasure." Suddenly, from over the top of the stockade, a shot was fired. Dick felt a sting, in the vicinity of the bayonet-wound received at Bunker Hill, and fell forward on his hands and knees. A gate in the stockade was thrown open, and two soldiers strode forth, lowering their faces to avoid the falling snow. At the same moment, a tall form sprang out from the shadow of a broken rock in front of Dick, completed the whistled passage of music suddenly cut off by Dick's fall, and said: "Ye're nae woman in a boat, but ye're a braw whistler, and I'll tak' your papers!" [Illustration: "IT WAS THE MAN SENT BY ARNOLD."] It was the man sent by Arnold,--old Tom MacAlister. "Take them, Tom, and away with them quick, for God's sake!" cried Dick, handing them to him. "But ye're hurt, lad!" cried Tom, thrusting the papers deep into an inner pocket.