Would the girl do it, or would she slip before he could catch her? She was directly over him at last. "Now," he said, "your foot almost touches my shoulder. Ay—that's it, put your weight on it and—ah! that's right. Thank God!" He held her in his arms now, and the next moment she was safe at his side.
Meg leant against the entrance of the cave, half laughing and half crying.
She was not in the least surprised to see that it was the preacher who had saved her, but the absurdity of the situation struck her with a sudden reaction.
The cave was dark, and very damp and ill-smelling; the ledge was just wide enough for them to stand quite safely on it. They were perched like two big birds on the face of the cliff, with a sheer descent that not even Barnabas could have swarmed down, below them.
"Yes, yes!" she gasped in answer to his ejaculation of thankfulness. "But—we shall never, never get up again!"
The preacher made no reply directly. Possibly the same idea had occurred to him.
She sat down in the entrance of the cave, and he tied up her bruised arm as well as he could, improvising a sling with the lace scarf she wore round her neck.
Fortunately, no bones were broken; and she assured him with a smile that he "hardly hurt her at all," though the muscles had been badly strained and her arm was still quite useless. He looked at her doubtfully, but could hardly gather from her face how much or how little she was suffering. He was not accustomed to women of Meg's class, and was sorely puzzled as to what he had best do next.
"Look here!" he said at last. "It's not possible that ye should spend the night in this wet hole; ye'd be fairly starved wi' cold, and no one's likely to come by before morning. I'll climb up somehow and run to the coastguard for help. Ye won't be scared here, eh?"
He bent down and put his jersey between her and the wall of the cave.