"For one horrible moment she hung there suspended by her hands."
Till then she had purposely refrained from looking below, for the very thought of that gloomy depth turned her sick and giddy. But now, clutching the rope despairingly, she essayed a hasty glance down. In the dim light, about six feet below, she caught the glimmer of water. Again half a dozen thoughts flashed through her mind in one lightning second of time. Should she climb up again or should she drop into the water? If Nat were still alive she might hold her up till the girls traced them to the well. She was a good swimmer and had been accustomed to the water from childhood, but it was the numbing cold she feared—and the water would be very cold indeed this winter day. She dared not waste a precious second in hesitation. With a quick sobbing breath she slid to the very end of the rope and dropped, prepared for an almost instantaneous plunge into icy water.
There was no plunge of any sort, however. Instead, she alighted on her feet quite unhurt in some three or four inches of soft mud and water, and almost before she had recovered from her astonishment a voice, which seemed to come from a spot close to her feet, said in faint tones: "Hallo, is that you, Monica?" and Nat herself rose up in much the same way as did the apparition of the Crowned Child in Macbeth—or so it seemed to Monica.
She heard herself laughing shakily. "Then you're not dead after all, Nat! I—I thought you were, as you didn't answer when I called."
Nat, leaning against the chalky side of the well, put her hand up to her head very gingerly. "My head is ringing like—like anything. There's a bump as big as an egg on one side. I suppose I must have struck it against the side when I fell. Probably it stunned me, for I don't remember anything very clearly till you dropped from the skies. How long have I been down here?"
"I don't know. It seems hours since you disappeared over the edge, but I suppose it's really only a minute or two."
"How on earth did you get here? You didn't fall too?"
Monica pointed upwards. "I came down the rope. But it wasn't long enough, so I had to drop. I—I thought perhaps you were hurt." There was a sob in her voice.