She turned her dimming eyes toward the suspension bridge hung high above the swift and lashing rapids of New Hope River--the bridge, a cobweb-strand in space, across the chasm.
There it seemed to her, though now she could be sure of nothing, so strangely did the earth and sky and cliffs, the bridge, the jungle, all dance and interplay--there, it seemed, she saw a moving figure.
Disheveled, torn, almost naked, lame and slow, yet with something still of power and command in its bearing, this figure was advancing over the swaying path of bamboo-rods lashed to the cables of twisted fiber.
Now it halted as in exhaustion and great pain; now, once more, it struggled forward, limping, foot by foot; crawling, hanging fast to the ropes like some great insect meshed in the wind-swung filaments.
She saw it, and she knew the truth at last.
“Allan! Allan--come quick! Help me--help!”
Then she collapsed. At her door she fell. All things blent and swirled, faded, darkened.
She knew no more.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE BOY IS GONE!
The man, weak, wounded, racked with exhaustion from the terrible ordeal of the past days, felt fresh vigor leap through his spent veins at sight of her distress, afar.