He would have given all he possessed to be that butterfly just then. Yet after all—could the butterfly venture for his country?—and would he if he could?
Suddenly the boy's soul broke through the darkness shrouding it, and bubbled up, a sea of twinkling, tumbling light. Standing there, clawing the cliff, death at his feet, Eternity within touch of him, he laughed.
At the crisis his humour, heaven's best gift, had saved him.
I will yet go forward.
A knob of chalk, swelling out of the side of the cliff, caught his eye. He saw it, and too wise to pause for thought, sprang. His foot touched the knob. He thrust back. As he thrust, it gave beneath him, and fell with a resounding splash into the sea.
But it had done its work; and he was swinging with one hand on the stem of the green-plumed bush….
Curiously familiar this swinging in space with fluttering heart….
Was it only in dreams?…
The splash of the falling boulder set the gulls screaming.
"There!" shrilled a voice, faint and far beneath. "What did I tell you?"
"Take the boat, Red Beard, and have a look."