She saw their full position. There was time to get back from where they stood, but if they went on to the cape of cliff before them there would be no time to get back, they would have to go on, and the unseen cliffs beyond that cape might stretch for twenty miles unclimbable as here.
Yet the idea of going back was horrible, heartbreaking.
She saw that Raft was between two moods. Then she said to him.
“If you were alone would you go back or go on?”
“Me?” said Raft. He paused for a moment as if in thought—“Oh, I reckon I’d go on.”
“Then we will go on.”
“I was thinkin’ of you,” said he.
“I know—but I could not bear to go back. If we fail now like that we will fail altogether. Imagine going all that way back. No, I couldn’t. We must risk it.”
“I’m thinking that way,” said he.
He picked up the bundle and harpoon and they started, and no sooner had she taken the first step than Fear laid his hand on her heart and a wild craving to return seized her so that she could have cried out.