But Juliet had no intention of mounting to the summit of the frowning cliff that night.

She had a vagrant desire to track that elusive scent, but even that, it seemed was not to be satisfied, and at length she stopped again and sent a summoning whistle after Columbus.
It was almost at the same moment that there came from behind her a sound that shattered all the fairy romance of the night at a blow.

She turned sharply, and immediately, like a fiendish chorus, it came again spreading and echoing along the cliffs--the yelling of drunken laughter.
Several men were coming along the path that she had travelled.

She saw them vaguely in the dimness a little way below her, and realized that her retreat in that direction was cut off.

Swiftly she considered the position, for there was no time to be lost.