“It is safe,” she called. “See, hold thou the plank! I will stand on the farther side of the stone so that it may not overbalance with your greater weights. Now, come, oh Holly, for presently the light will fail us.”
I struggled to my knees, and if ever I felt terrified in my life it was then, and I am not ashamed to say that I hesitated and hung back.
“Surely thou art not afraid,” this strange creature called in a lull of the gale, from where she stood poised like a bird on the highest point of the rocking-stone. “Make way then for Kallikrates.”
This settled me; it is better to fall down a precipice and die than be laughed at by such a woman; so I clenched my teeth, and in another instant I was on that horrible, narrow, bending plank, with bottomless space beneath and around me. I have always hated a great height, but never before did I realise the full horrors of which such a position is capable. Oh, the sickening sensation of that yielding board resting on the two moving supports. I grew dizzy, and thought that I must fall; my spine crept; it seemed to me that I was falling, and my delight at finding myself sprawling upon that stone, which rose and fell beneath me like a boat in a swell, cannot be expressed in words. All I know is that briefly, but earnestly enough, I thanked Providence for preserving me so far.
Then came Leo’s turn, and though he looked rather queer, he came across like a rope-dancer. Ayesha stretched out her hand to clasp his own, and I heard her say, “Bravely done, my love—bravely done! The old Greek spirit lives in thee yet!”
And now only poor Job remained on the farther side of the gulf. He crept up to the plank, and yelled out, “I can’t do it, sir. I shall fall into that beastly place.”
“You must,” I remember saying with inappropriate facetiousness—“you must, Job, it’s as easy as catching flies.” I suppose that I must have said it to satisfy my conscience, because although the expression conveys a wonderful idea of facility, as a matter of fact I know no more difficult operation in the whole world than catching flies—that is, in warm weather, unless, indeed, it is catching mosquitoes.
“I can’t, sir—I can’t, indeed.”
“Let the man come, or let him stop and perish there. See, the light is dying! In a moment it will be gone!” said Ayesha.
I looked. She was right. The sun was passing below the level of the hole or cleft in the precipice through which the ray reached us.