To this there was no reply, and some minutes went by in silence. Again Renshaw heard his name called. But he deigned no answer.
“I say, Fanning,” came the voice from overhead again. “Hang it, man, say you agree.”
“Never,” now replied Renshaw, speaking coldly and deliberately. “I have never been a grasping man, and I defy my worst enemy to charge me with a single instance of taking advantage of anybody. But—I have always tried to be a man of principle—to act on principle. And in utterly refusing to play up to your villainous hand I am following out that line consistently. And now, Maurice Sellon, I will just add this. I am alone in the world, and having no ties my life is to that extent my own. I will let it be sacrificed rather than violate a principle. But you, from the hour you leave this place, you will never know a moment’s peace, never for a moment will the recollection of what you have done to-day cease to haunt you. Here from my living tomb I can afford to pity you.”
Again there was silence. But there was an awfulness about those parting words, the more forcible that they were spoken without heat or anger—a solemnity which could not but live in the recollection of him to whom they were addressed. How did they strike him now?
Suddenly something shot out into the air from above, falling with a ‘thwack’ against the face of the cliff. It was the raw-hide rope.
Renshaw merely looked at it. The end trailed at his feet. Yet he put forward no hand to seize it.
“Come on, old chap,” sung out Sellon in his heartiest manner. “Why, I’ve only been playing off a practical joke on you—just to see how ‘grit’ you are. And you are ‘grit’ and no mistake.”
But Renshaw shook his head with a bitter smile. Still he made no move forward.
“Do you want to finish me off more quickly than at first?” he said. “I suppose the line will be cut by the time I’m half-way up.”
“No. I swear it won’t,” called out the other. “Man alive, can’t you take a little chaff? I tell you I’ve only been humbugging you all along.”