Mark could make no reply, and he hung there, listening to the murmur of voices once more. Then the rush of the river sounded like the distant boom of thunder. There was a loud cizz, cizz, going on somewhere on the cliff face from a cricket, and the birds were singing more loudly than he ever remembered to have heard them before.
Once more his senses must have left him and come back, for he heard the voice above louder than ever, followed by Ralph shouting,—
“Can you tie the rope round you?”
Mark could not answer for some little time; then his lips parted, and he gasped out the one word,—
“No.”
A sharp rustling followed, as of a rope being rapidly drawn up. Then it was lowered again; and as Mark strained his eyes round into the left corners to get a glimpse, he saw a loop swinging to and fro, and it struck him again and again; but those who lowered it, in the hope of noosing the lad and drawing him up, soon found that the bush and the sufferer’s position precluded this.
“Can you push your arms through the loop, and hang on?” cried Ralph now.
“No,” was the discouraging reply, for Mark fully realised the fact that if he loosened his desperate hold for a moment he must fall.
“Haul up!” shouted Ralph. “Quick!”
The rope rattled and scraped again; and then, as Mark hung there, half-insensible, he heard what sounded like quarrelling.