Ten o'clock was striking in the distant church-tower as they gathered round the spot from which the cries for help had proceeded.  A terrible sight was dimly revealed to them in the uncertain glare cast upon it by the lights which they carried.  Hanging over the edge of the chalk-pit was the squire's carriage.  One horse had broken away from the traces, but the other was struggling violently, and seemed likely, in its plungings, to force the carriage still further over the precipitous side of the pit.  The coachman, who had managed to spring unharmed from the box, was doing his best to restrain the violence of the terrified animal, but with only partial success; while the situation of Mr Huntingdon himself and of his maiden sister, who were inside the carriage, was perilous and distressing in the extreme.