"Oh, Monica!" Olive murmured, with a convulsive shudder which nearly caused them both to lose their foothold, "I am so frightened! I looked down as I fell, and it seemed as if I must go rolling all the way down to the bottom, and if I had.... Oh, Monica, I should have been killed, I know I should!" And Olive burst into tears.
"Don't cry, dear," said Monica, soothingly; "if we can manage to hold on until help comes, we shall be all right. I--have asked--God to let us both be saved, Ollie," she added, in a lower tone, "and--I believe He will."
"Oh, Monica," wailed Olive, as she clung to her friend, "I tried so hard to pray when I felt myself falling, but I couldn't! And then I remembered all I said last Sunday morning, and it seemed as if God was punishing me for my wickedness, by giving me no more chance."
"I don't think He is like that," said Monica. "I think He loves us too much. I am sure I have heard something about Him not wanting anybody to perish. I am going to try to serve Him after this, Olive, so don't persuade me not to, any more."
"Oh, I won't! I am so miserable. I would rather be good, too, but I can't!" cried the unhappy girl, who had caught a glimpse of her real self during those moments of agonised suspense.
"I will try to help you, dear, but I shan't know quite what to do myself," said Monica; "but if God hears our prayers, and lets us get rescued, it would be mean not to try to please Him after that."
"He may hear your prayers," was Olive's desponding reply, "but I can't pray."
"Try, dear," whispered Monica, closing her own eyes, and asking once again that help might be speedily forthcoming, for she did not feel as if she could hold on much longer. But, even as she prayed, a voice calling both their names came floating over the cliff, and Elsa's face, white and strained, but with hope written all over it, looked down at them.
"Hold tight, Monica and Olive, just for a minute more. Mr. Herschel is coming down to help you."
And in a moment more, the young clergyman, his body encircled by a stout rope, which was secured at the other end to the stump of a tree on the cliff path above, climbed carefully but quickly down to them.