I looked up and down, and saw behind me a vista of tree-trunks, before me a wooden bridge and an open meadow, lying cold and grey in the twilight; and I stood in astonishment. We were in the old path to the Chateau! I shivered at the thought that he was going to take us there, to the house, to Mademoiselle! The Captain also recognised the place, and swore aloud. But the dumb man went on unheeding until he reached the wooden bridge. There he stopped short, and looked towards the dark outline of the house, which was just visible, one faint light twinkling sadly in the west wing. As the Captain and I pressed up behind him, he raised his hands and seemed to wring them towards the house. ‘Have a care!’ the Captain growled. ‘Play me no tricks, or--’ He did not finish the sentence, for Clon, as if he well understood his impatience, turned back from the bridge, and, entering the wood to the left, began to ascend the bank of the stream. We had not gone a hundred yards before the ground grew rough, and the undergrowth thick; and yet through all ran a kind of path which enabled us to advance, dark as it was now growing. Very soon the bank on which we moved began to rise above the water, and grew steep and rugged. We turned a shoulder, where the stream swept round a curve, and saw we were in the mouth of a small ravine, dark and sheer-sided. The water brawled along the bottom, over boulders and through chasms. In front, the slope on which we stood shaped itself into a low cliff; but halfway between its summit and the water a ledge, or narrow terrace, running along the face, was dimly visible. ‘Ten to one, a cave!’ the Captain muttered. ‘It is a likely place.’ ‘And an ugly one!’ I replied with a sneer. ‘Which one against ten might hold for hours!’ ‘If the ten had no pistols--yes!’ he answered viciously. ‘But you see we have. Is he going that way?’ He was. As soon as this was clear, Larolle turned to his comrade. ‘Lieutenant,’ he said, speaking in a low voice, though the chafing of the stream below us covered ordinary sounds; ‘what say you? Shall we light the lanthorns, or press on while there is still a glimmering of day?’ ‘On, I should say, M. le Capitaine,’ the Lieutenant answered. ‘Prick him in the back if he falters. I will warrant,’ the brute added with a chuckle, ‘he has a tender place or two.’