Yet we all reached the bottom in time; and as we did so, the boom of a gun from the rocks above us told that our men were already before the castle knocking for entrance.
Then we waded and scrambled in the darkness at the water's edge, till we came to the base of the great black rock on which the fortress stood.
Often we were wading waist-deep in the pools, and often on hands and knees drawing ourselves over the surf-swept ledges.

Ludar seemed to know every step of the way, despite the years that had passed since as a boy he hunted there for sea-birds, nor was he in the humour now to slacken speed for us who knew not when we put out one foot, where we should land with the other.
Above us, the noise of the guns was already lost in the thunder of the waves as they echoed in the cave under the castle rock.

It seemed, as we stood there and looked up, that not a foot further could we go.

The great angry cliff beetled over our heads, and on its very edge, far above, we might discern against the gloomy sky the dim corner of a buttress.
But it was not here that Ludar meant us to ascend.

"Now, my men," said he, "put your powder in your bonnets and follow me." Whereupon he took a step up to his neck in the deep water, and started to swim.