Drawing closer still, Stephen guided the reluctant animal to the very
edge of the cliffs upon their left. Far below the seas crashed
sullenly against the unyielding stone, or hissed dark warnings upon
the sands of a shallow inlet. Michael strained his eyes for any sign
of the waiting skiff, but distance and darkness defied him.
And soon the great, cornering Tower frowned black and menacing before
them. They dismounted, feeling small, perhaps a hundred yards away, in
the hollow beneath a wind-riven oak.
Together they advanced on foot, through the cold stubble-grass, until
they were halted by the rounded bulge of the Tower itself. Immediately
to the right of it a dry, deep-cloven moat had been cut into the stone
foundation, encircling the Castle on its three exposed sides. The
fourth, to westward, was protected by the fall of cliffs behind.
But the Tower itself needed no such fortification. Two hundred feet
high, its thick and unscalable walls showed no opening for at least
half that distance, and then only a staggered spiralling of high
narrow windows for archers.
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