No language could describe the awful sensation of that melting away of the solid earth—the most dreadful nightmare would be almost a pleasant memory compared with it.
I was now only a few feet from the rock whose very touch meant safety to me—but it was just beyond my reach! I was sinking to my doom!—I could see the horror in Norah’s eyes, as she gained the rock and struggled to her feet.
But even Norah’s love could not help me—I was beyond the reach of her arms, and she no more than I could keep a foothold on the liquifying earth. Oh! that she had a rope and I might be saved! Alas! she had none—even the shawl that might have aided me had fallen off in her struggle with Murdock.
But Norah had, with her woman’s quick instinct, seen a way to help me. In an instant she had had torn off her red petticoat of heavy homespun cloth and thrown one end to me. I clutched and caught it with a despairing grasp—for by this time only my head and hands remained above the surface.
“Now, O God! for strength!” was the earnest prayer of her heart, and my thought was:—
“Now, for the strong hands that that other had despised!”
Norah threw herself backward with her feet against a projecting piece of the rock, and I felt that if we could both hold out long enough I was saved.
Little by little I gained! I drew closer and closer to the rock! Closer! closer still! till with one hand I grasped the rock itself, and hung on, breathless, in blind desperation. I was only just able to support myself, for there was a strange dragging power in the viscous mass that held me, and greatly taxed my strength, already exhausted in the terrible struggle for life. The bog was beginning to move! But Norah bent forward, kneeling on the rock, and grasped my coat collar in her strong hands. Love and despair lent her additional strength, and with one last great effort she pulled me upward—and in an instant more I lay on the rock safe and in her arms.
During this time, short as it was, the morning had advanced, and the cold grey mysterious light disclosed the whole slope before us dim in the shadow of the hill. Opposite to us, across the bog, we saw Joyce and Dick watching us, and between the gusts of wind we faintly heard their shouts.
To our right, far down the hill, the Shleenanaher stood out boldly, its warder rocks struck by the grey light falling over the hill-top. Nearer to us, and something in the same direction, Murdock’s house rose a black mass in the centre of the hollow.