Chapter Thirty.
The Place of the Eye.
Some minutes they remained helpless in that perilous position, then Laura aroused, but at the deep silence—significant of, perhaps, more disaster—she cried out, frightened.
Hume muttered some inarticulate reply.
“Oh, let us get away from here,” she said, almost in a whisper. “The precipice so near seems to draw me to it, and in every breath of wind I hear a stealthy footstep.”
“Yes, let us go,” he said in a low voice, trying to keep his agony from her knowledge. “Keep your left hand against the rock, and tread firmly. Sirayo!”
“My strength has returned,” answered the chief, though he still breathed heavily. “Pass by, and I will follow,” and there was a movement as he edged to the brink of the krantz.
“I will go first,” said Hume; “follow me closely, Laura;” and setting his teeth so that no groan should escape, he groped his way along. She came fearfully behind, catching her breath now and again, and Sirayo followed.
Now that the excitement, which had supported them before, had died away, the return along that giddy height, with no other guide than the sense of touch, was full of terrors, and these increased in the slow and hesitating advance. If she had known that the one who led was blind, that at times he almost reeled through pain, she must inevitably have broken down; but Hume forced himself to the task with a desperate resolve.