“There are two other ways,” said Kenneth: “to jump in and swim round to the sands.”
“Ah!”
“And for Scood and me to go up and fetch a rope and let it down. Then you’ll sit in a loop, and we shall haul you up, while you spin round like a roast fowl on a hook, and the bottle-jack up above going click.”
“I think I can climb up,” said Max, who was very sensitive to ridicule; and he climbed, but with all the time a creepy sensation attacking him—a feeling of being sure to fall over the side and plunge headlong into the sea, while, at the last point, where the great stone projected a little over the climbers’ heads, the sensation seemed to culminate.
But Max set his teeth in determination not to show his abject fear, and the next moment he was on the top, feeling as if he had gone through more perils during the past eight-and-forty hours than he had ever encountered in his life.
“Look out!” cried Kenneth suddenly.
“Why? What?”
“It’s only the dogs; and if Bruce leaps at you, he may knock you off the cliff.”
Almost as he spoke, the great staghound made a dash at Max, who avoided the risk by leaping sideways, and getting as far as he could from the unprotected brink.