The rope was undoubtedly attached to the trunk of a sturdy tree at the brow of the cliff.
She could look no longer; it seemed hours since he started from the top. Every heart-beat brought him nearer to safety, but would he hold out? Any instant might bring him crashing to her feet—dead, after all that he may have lived through during that awful night.
At last she heard his heavy panting, groaning almost; the creaking and straining of the rope, the scraping of his hands and body. She opened her eyes and saw the bulky, swaying shadow not twenty feet above the garden. Slowly it drew nearer the grass-covered floor—foot by foot, straining, struggling, gasping in the final supreme effort—and then, with a sudden rush, the black mass collapsed and the taut rope sprung loose, the end switching and leaping violently.
Genevra rushed frantically across the garden, half-fearful, half-joyous. As she came up, the mass seemed to divide itself into two parts. One sank limply to the ground, the other stood erect for a second and then dropped beside the prostrate, gasping figure.
Chase had come down the rope with another human being clinging to his body!
Genevra fell to her knees beside the man who had accomplished this miracle. She gave but a passing glance at the other dark figure beside her. All of her interest was in the writhing, gasping American. She grasped his hands, warm and sticky with blood; she tried to lift his head from the ground, moaning with pity all the time, uttering words of encouragement in his ear.
Many minutes passed. At last Chase gave over gasping and began to breathe regularly but heavily. The strain had been tremendous; only superhuman strength and will had carried him through the ordeal. He groaned with pain as the two beside him lifted him to a sitting posture.
"Tell Selim to come ahead," he gasped, his bloody hand at his throat. "We're all right!"
Then, for the first time, Genevra peered in the darkness at the figure beside her. She stared in amazement as it sprang lightly erect and glided across to the patch of light. It was then that she recognised the figure of a woman—a slight, graceful woman in Oriental garb. The woman turned and lifted her face to the heights from which she had descended. In a shrill, eager voice she called out something in a language strange to the Princess, who knelt there and stared as if she were looking upon a being from another world. A faint shout came from on high, and once more the rope began to writhe.
The Princess passed her hand over her eyes, bewildered. The face of the woman in the light, half-shaded, half-illumined, was gloriously beautiful—young, dark, brilliant!