“Oh yes, I know. The whole place is called the Bluff. But I mean where you can stand on the edge and look down into a great gap thousands of feet deep.”
“Look round.”
Nic looked about him, and then back at the bitter-countenanced man.
“What am I to look at?”
“Can’t you see the edge of the Bluff?”
The man took a few paces, winding among the low growth, and Nic followed him, to start back directly in alarm.
“Nothing to mind,” said the man; but Nic did not see the freedom from danger, and he involuntarily caught hold of a handful of twigs at the top of the nearest bush to steady himself, as he gazed away down into a mighty valley whose sides looked to be sheer and whose bottom was thousands of feet below. It was like looking down into an open country shut in by a perpendicular wall of mountains where a glittering river ran, and the trees were dwarfed into tiny shrubs, while patches of forest looked like tufts of grass. The colours were glorious; but for the moment the boy felt nothing but that breathless, shrinking sensation which attacks some people upon a height; and he said huskily:
“How horrible!”
“Yes,” said the man gloomily. “Right: how horrible!” and he scowled down at the vast depression.
“No, no,” cried Nic excitedly. “How lovely—glorious—grand!”