He put forth his full strength then. She felt the strain of his muscles as he gathered her up with one arm. With the other hand, had she but known it, he was grasping only the naked rock. Yet he moved as if absolutely sure of himself. He drew a deep hard breath, and began to mount.
It was only a few feet to the top as he had said, but the climb seemed to her unending. She was conscious throughout that his endurance was being put to the utmost test, and only by the most complete passivity could she help him.
But he never faltered, and finally—just when she had begun to wonder if this awful nightmare of danger could ever cease—she found herself set down upon the dewy grass that covered the top of the cliff. The scent of the gorse bushes came again to her and the far sweet call of the nightingale. And she realized that the danger was past and she was back once more in the magic region of her summer dreams from which she had been so rudely flung. She saw again the shimmering, wonderful sea and the ever-brightening stars. One of them hung, a golden globe of light like a beacon on the dim horizon.
Then Columbus came pushing and nuzzling against her, full of tender enquiries and congratulations; and something that she did not fully understand made her turn and clasp him closely with a sudden rush of tears. The danger was over, all over. And never till this moment had she realized how amazingly sweet was life.
CHAPTER IV
BROTHER DICK
She covered her emotion with the most herculean efforts at gaiety. She laughed very shakily at the solicitude expressed by Columbus, and told him tremulously how absurd and ridiculous he was to make such a fuss about nothing.
After this, feeling a little better, she ventured a glance at her companion. He was on his feet and wiping his forehead—a man of medium height and no great breadth of shoulder, but evidently well knit and athletic. Becoming by some means aware of her attention, he put away his handkerchief and turned towards her. She saw his eyes gleam under black, mobile brows that seemed to denote a considerable sense of humour. The whole of his face held an astonishing amount of vitality, but the lips were straight and rather hard, so clean-cut as to be almost ascetic. He looked to her like a man who would suffer to the utmost, but never lose his self-control. And she thought she read a pride more than ordinary in the cast of his features—a man capable of practically anything save the asking or receiving of favours.
Then he spoke, and curiously all criticism vanished. "I had better introduce myself," he said. "I'm afraid I've been unpardonably rude. My name is Green."
Green! The word darted at her like an imp of mischief. The romantic dropped to the prosaic with a suddenness that provoked in her an almost irresistible desire to laugh.