I made no reply but to resist him doggedly, till at last, with a grunt, he let me go, and I turned, lying flat-faced, and swung my legs over the precipice.
“O, you old brute!” he said. “Well, go easy, then, and dig your toes in.”
And with that I let go and slid away, clawing and scratching like a cat coming down a tree. It was just to fasten on and commit one’s self to luck, which, fortunately for me, directed my feet to a ledge, on which I brought up, gasping and spitting out dirt. But once secure of my hold, and in a state to look about me, I was relieved to find that the position was much more possible than it had seemed either from above or below, the projecting spits of stonework being more and more pronounced than had showed at a distance.
I took a minute to get my wind, and then called up to Harry to follow; but he was already on his way. I saw him coming at a risky pace, and by a slightly divergent course, which he had taken to avoid me. It would have carried him clear of the ruin altogether had I not, at the psychologic moment, clapped my hand to the seat of his small-clothes and checked his descent.
“O!” he howled, “let go!”
“I won’t!” I cried. “Don’t be an ass! Stick your foot out here!”
With a desperate effort he managed to wriggle oblique, and in a moment we were standing together on the ledge.
“That was give and take,” he panted. “Like being saved from drowning by a shark. Can’t say your bark’s worse than your bite.”
I chuckled so that I was near falling off our perch, till a sudden thought sobered me.
“Supposing, after all, we can’t get in, or up or down neither?” I said dismayed. “A pretty picture we shall make, stuck up here.”