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.
[Illustration: The ledge was breaking.]
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.