There was a slight breeze from the eastward, and the current of air slanting up the face of the peak assisted the balloon in mounting with its burden, and favored us by promptly swinging the little airship, with the grapple swaying beneath it, over the brow of the cliff into the atmospheric eddy above. As soon as we saw that the grapple was well over the edge we pulled upon the rope. The balloon instantly shot into view with the anchor dancing, but, under the influence of the wind, quickly returned to its former position behind the projecting brink. The grapple had failed to take hold.
“‘Try, try again’ must be our motto now,” muttered Hall.
We tried several times with the same result, although each time we slightly shifted our position. At last the grapple caught.
“Now, all together!” cried my companion, and simultaneously we threw our weight upon the slender rope. The anchor apparently did not give an inch.
“Let me go first,” said Hall, pushing me aside as I caught the first knot above my head. “It’s my device, and it’s only fair that I should have the first try.”
In a minute he was many feet up the wall, climbing swiftly hand over hand, but occasionally stopping and twisting his leg around the rope while he took breath.
“It’s easier than I expected,” he called down, when he had ascended about one hundred feet. “Here and there the rock offers a little hold for the knees.”
I watched him, breathless with anxiety, and, as he got higher, my imagination pictured the little gold grapple, invisible above the brow of the precipice, with perhaps a single thin prong wedged into a crevice, and slowly ploughing its way towards the edge with each impulse of the climber, until but another pull was needed to set it flying! So vivid was my fancy that I tried to banish it by noticing that a certain knot in the rope remained just at the level of my eyes, where it had been from the start. Hall was now fully two hundred feet above the ledge on which I stood, and was rapidly nearing the top of the precipice. In a minute more he would be safe.
Suddenly he shouted, and, glancing up with a leap of the heart, I saw that he was falling! He kept his face to the rock, and came down feet foremost. It would be useless to attempt any description of my feelings; I would not go through that experience again for the price of a battleship. Yet it lasted less than a second. He had dropped not more than ten feet when the fall was arrested.
“All right!” he called, cheerily. “No harm done! It was only a slip.”