“Jem.”
“Hullo, lad?”
“If I let go and dropped, how far should I fall?”
“’Bout two foot ten,” said Jem, after a glance below them at the sheer precipice.
“Then I had better drop.”
“If you do you will knock me to the bottom, so just you hold on till I tells you.”
Jem kept up his jocular way of speaking; but if any one could have looked on, he would have seen that his face was curiously mottled with sallow, while his hands were trembling when at liberty, and that there was a curiously wild, set look in his eyes.
“There, Mas’ Don,” he said cheerily, as he finished climbing sidewise till he was exactly beneath. “Now, one moment. That’s it.”
As he spoke he drew himself up a little, taking fast hold of the stem of a bush, and of a projecting stone, while he found foot-hold in a wide crevice.
“Now then, rest your foot on my shoulders. There you are. That’s the way. Two heads is better than one.”