Then, all at once, when he was about half-way up, Joe suddenly stopped short, but Gwyn did not notice it till his cap was within a few inches of the other’s boots.
“Well, go on,” he cried cheerily. “What’s the matter—out of breath?”
“No.”
“Eh? What is it—what’s the matter?” said Gwyn, for he was startled by the tone in which the word was uttered.
“I—I don’t know,” came back in a hoarse whisper, which sent a shudder through Gwyn, as he involuntarily glanced down at the awful depth beneath him. “It’s the cold water, I think. One of my feet has gone dead, and the other’s getting numb. Gwyn! Gwyn! Here, quick! I don’t know what I’m— Quick!—help! I’m going to fall!”
Chapter Seventeen.
Gwyn shows his Mettle.
Too much horrified for the moment even to speak, Gwyn grasped the sides of the ladder with spasmodic strength; his eyes dilated, his jaw dropped, and he clung there completely paralysed. Then his mental balance came back as suddenly as he had lost it, and feeling once more the strong, healthy lad he was, it came to him like a flash that it was impossible that Joe Jollivet, his companion in hundreds of rock-climbing expeditions—where they had successfully made their way along places which would have given onlookers what is known as “the creeps,”—could be in the danger he described, and with a merry laugh, he cried,—