“Yes. Where’s this dangerous shelf?”
“I will take you along it. Where is your handkerchief?”
“It was too hot to have it round my neck,” said Nic, smiling, as he took it from where it was tied about his waist.
“I am going to bind it round your eyes,” said the convict.
“What! For fear that I should find the way down into the gorge?”
“No; because your head may turn giddy when you see the depth below you. I want you to trust me, Nic, to lead you safely along the shelf. Can you do this?”
Nic was silent for a few moments.
“I feel as if I want to trust you,” he said at last; “but I don’t feel as if I can—no, no, I don’t mean that. I mean that I want to trust you, but I can’t trust myself. No, that isn’t it exactly. I suppose I’m afraid. Why can’t I walk close behind you?”
“Because I doubt your doing it without practice. I expect that you would go along half-way and then lose your nerve, and I don’t think I could lift and carry you then. Won’t you trust me, Nic?”
The boy looked sharply into his eyes for a moment, and then leaned forward for his eyes to be bound, thinking the while of the log bridge over the fern gully and his feelings there.