“Both ends cut off. The water will reach her feet in ten minutes; will sweep the base of the cliff, in twenty.”
Exactly beneath the spot where he stood, more than half way down, was a ledge about six feet long by four feet wide.
Letting himself over the edge, holding to tufts of grass, tiny shrubs, jutting stones, cracks in the surface of the sandstone, he managed to reach this narrow ledge, dropping the last ten feet, and landing on it by an almost superhuman effort of balance.
One moment he paused; carefully took its measure; then, leaning over, looked down. Sixty feet remained, a precipitous slope, with nothing to which foot could hold, or hand could cling.
Jim Airth buttoned his Norfolk jacket, and tightened his belt. Then slipping, feet foremost off the ledge, he glissaded down on his back, bending his knees at the exact moment when his feet thudded heavily on to the sand.
For a moment the shock stunned him. Then he got up and looked around.
He stood, within ten yards of the scarlet parasol, on the small strip of sand still left uncovered by the rapidly advancing sweep of the rising tide.