Stepping briskly forward, I found that it truly was as he said, for there yawned a great gap, which no man could jump; and that there had been a bridge here we could plainly see by the print of the tree-trunks in the rubble on the ledge cut for them in the rock. Moreover, looking over the edge, we spied one of these timbers lying athwart of a rock down below.
This discovery so comforted me (for I made sure I was now near my Lady Biddy, instead of being all at sea as to her whereabouts) that I set up a great shout of joy.
"For the love of Heaven, master, have a care!" cried Matthew in a whisper, after listening a moment in terror. "Did you not hear that answer to your shout?"
"Nay," says I; "what answer?"
"I know not," says he, looking around him in a scare; "pray Heaven it be not our enemies."
"Nonsense," says I, beside myself with this return of hope; "'twas but an echo from the rocks—hark!" And with that I hallooed again as loud as I could, which was the maddest thing to do, and not to be done save by a man reckless with despair or with joy.
On this Matthew claps his hand on his mouth in terror, as if it was he who had sung out, and then lifting his finger crouches down on his hams, overcome with fear and expecting nothing less, I believe, than to be riddled with musket-balls the next minute. But he had cause for alarm, and I only was the fool, for now I distinctly heard over and above the echoes of my voice a cry harsh and hoarse, but like nothing human, so that I was brought to my sober senses in a moment. So we stood silent and still for the space of a minute, wondering whence this sound came (and I not much braver than Matthew), and then I fell laughing like a fool.
"See," says I, pointing to a great buzzard which was sweeping in a circle over the trees below, "there is the only enemy I have roused, and one whose flight is more to be counted on than his attack."
But Matthew would not join in my mirth, and, albeit he got back his courage presently, he was not so light of heart as he had been before, for he took this bird to be a sign of ill-omen.
"Come, master," says he, "instead of playing the fool here, let us think how we are to get t'other side this chasm, unless you are minded to rest here content. For my own part, I see no way to get across."