I heard the sound of a footstep: and fac’d round.
Before me, not six paces off, stood Hannibal Tingcomb.
He was issuing from the hole with a sack on his shoulder, and sneaking to descend the steps, when he threw a glance behind—and saw me!
Neither spoke. With a face grey as ashes he turn’d very slowly, until in the unnatural light we look’d straight into each other’s eyes. His never blink’d, but stared—stared horribly, while the veins swell’d black on his forehead and his lips work’d, attempting speech. No words came—only a long drawn sob, deep down in his throat.
And then, letting slip the sack, he flung his arms up, ran a pace or two toward me, and tumbled on his face in a fit. His left shoulder hung over the verge; his legs slipp’d. In a trice he was hanging by his arms, his old distorted face turn’d up, and a froth about his lips. I made a step to save him: and then jump’d back, flattening myself against the rock.
The ledge was breaking.
I saw a seam gape at my feet. I saw it widen and spread to right and left. I heard a ripping, rending noise—a rush of stones and earth: and, clawing the air, with a wild screech, Master Tingcomb pitch’d backward, head over heels, into space.
Then follow’d silence: then a horrible splash as he struck the water, far below: then again a slipping and trickling, as more of the ledge broke away—at first a pebble or two sliding—a dribble of earth—next, a crash and a cloud of dust. A last stone ran loose and dropp’d. Then fell a silence so deep I could catch the roar of the flames on the hill behind.
Standing there, my arms thrown back and fingers spread against the rock, I saw a wave run out, widen, and lose itself on the face of the sea. Under my feet but eight inches of the cornice remain’d. My toes stuck forward over the gulf.
A score of startled gulls with their cries call’d me to myself. I open’d my eyes, that had shut in sheer giddiness. Close on my left the ledge was broke back to the very base, cutting me off by twelve feet from that part where the ladder still rested. No man could jump it, standing. To the right there was no gap: but in one place only was the footing over ten inches wide, and at the end my rope hung over the sea, a good yard away from the edge.
I shut my eyes and shouted.
There was no answer. In the dead stillness I could hear the rafters falling in the House of Gleys, and the shouts of the men at work. The Godsend lay around the point, out of sight. And Billy, deaf as a stone, sat no doubt by his rope, placidly waiting my signal.
I scream’d again and again. The rock flung my voice seaward. Across the summit vaulted above, there drifted a puff of brown smoke. No one heard.
A while of weakness followed. My brain reel’d: my fingers dug into the rock behind till they bled. I bent forward—forward over the heaving mist through which the sea crawl’d like a snake. It beckon’d me down, that crawling water. …
I stiffened my knees and the faintness pass’d. I must not look down again. It flashed on me that Delia had call’d me weak: and I hardened my heart to fight it out. I would face round to the cliff and work toward the rope.
’Twas a hateful moment while I turned: for to do so I must let go with one hand. And the rock thrust me outward. But at last I faced the cliff; waited a moment while my knees shook; and moving a foot cautiously to the left, began to work my way along, an inch at a time.
Looking down to guide my feet, I saw the waves twinkling beneath my heels. My palms press’d the rock. At every three inches I was fain to rest my forehead against it and gasp. Minute after minute went by—endless, intolerable, and still the rope seem’d as far away as ever. A cold sweat ran off me: a nausea possessed me. Once, where the ledge was widest, I sank on one knee, and hung for a while incapable of movement. But a black horror drove me on: and after the first dizzy stupor my wits were mercifully wide awake. Sure, ’twas God’s miracle preserv’d them to me, who looking at the sea and cliff and pitiless sun, had almost denied Him and his miracles together.
All the way I kept shouting: and so, for half an hour, inch by inch, shuffled forward, until I stood under the rope. Then I had to turn again.
The rock, though still overarching, here press’d out less than before: so that, working round on the ball of my foot, I managed pretty easily. But how to get the rope? As I said, it hung a good yard beyond the ledge, the noose dangling some two feet below it. With my finger tips against the cliff, I lean’d out and clutch’d at it. I miss’d it by a foot. “Shall I jump?” thought I, “or bide here till help comes?”
’Twas a giddy, awful leap. But the black horror was at my heels now. In a minute more ’twould have me; and then my fall was certain. I call’d up Delia’s face as she had taunted me. I bent my knees, and, leaving my hold of the rock, sprang forward—out, over the sea.
I saw it twinkle, fathoms below. My right hand touch’d—grasp’d the rope: then my left, as I swung far out upon it. I slipp’d an inch—three inches—then held, swaying
