Then a dull anger took me that he thought of the horse only, as it seemed, unless he was mazed as I was with it all.
"The man--the man," I said.
"There is no man here, Master. Did one fall?" he said in a new voice, and he crossed to the other side of the gorge and scanned the face of the cliff.
"He is not to be seen," he said. "Maybe he has caught yonder."
He pointed to a ledge that was plain enough to me, but nowhere near the place whence the fall was. There were no ledges to be seen as I looked straight down, and I knew that this place was the most sheer fall along all the length of the gorge.
Now three more of our party came up, and at once they rode down to the village and so round to where the man stood. It seemed a long time before they were there and talking to him.
"Ho, Oswald!"
Their voices came cheerfully enough, and I looked down at them.
"There seem to be clefts here and there, and in one of those he must needs be," they said. "We are going to the village to get a cragsman with a rope, and will be with you anon."
There was at least hope in that, and I watched them ride swiftly away. The ravens were gathering fast now, knowing that what fell from above must needs be their prey, and two great eagles were wheeling high overhead, waiting. I heard the kites screaming to one another from above the eagles, and from the woods came the call of the buzzards. They knew more than I.