'I am afraid you have only
endangered yourself.'
And as if to prove his statement, in making an endeavour by her
assistance they both slipped lower, and then he was again stayed.
His foot was propped by a bracket of quartz rock, balanced on the
verge of the precipice. Fixed by this, he steadied her, her head
being about a foot below the beginning of the slope. Elfride had
dropped the glass; it rolled to the edge and vanished over it into
a nether sky.
'Hold tightly to me,' he said.
She flung her arms round his neck with such a firm grasp that
whilst he remained it was impossible for her to fall.
'Don't be flurried,' Knight continued. 'So long as we stay above
this block we are perfectly safe. Wait a moment whilst I consider
what we had better do.'
He turned his eyes to the dizzy depths beneath them, and surveyed
the position of affairs.
Two glances told him a tale with ghastly distinctness. It was
that, unless they performed their feat of getting up the slope
with the precision of machines, they were over the edge and
whirling in mid-air.
For this purpose it was necessary that he should recover the
breath and strength which his previous efforts had cost him. So
he still waited, and looked in the face of the enemy.
The crest of this terrible natural facade passed among the
neighbouring inhabitants as being seven hundred feet above the
water it overhung. It had been proved by actual measurement to be
not a foot less than six hundred and fifty.
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