For one moment that fearful cry ceased and during that moment all was silence among the pic-nickers. For that instant, too, probably more than half the company believed that whatever the sound might be, it was the prank of some unscrupulous joker, hidden away in the undergrowth near the edge of the schute and intended to frighten the ladies out of any appetite for their dinner. The time of its coming, immediately following the dinner-call, was certainly favorable to that supposition. But when it commenced again, the very instant after, louder and more shrill, so evidently coming up from the depth below, the thought of practical jest vanished and every cheek grew deadly white with the certainty that some tragedy was being enacted near them, that human eye must be blasted by seeing and that human hand could probably find no power to avert.
It would have seemed the most unlikely of all things, when that ambiguous banquet on the top of the mountain was spread, that it should never be eaten; and yet the fates had so destined. Old Ancæus had quite as little faith in the prediction of the slave whom he overworked in his vineyard, that he should never taste of the product of the vines; and when he held the cup in his hand and the red wine was bubbling to the brim, ready to show the audacious prophet the fallacy of his prediction, the muttered: "There's many a slip between the cup and the lip!" no doubt fell upon incredulous ears. But even then the cry rang out that called him to the Hunt of the Calydonian Boar, and the spirit of the warrior was higher than the pride of the wine-grower and the hard master. The heavy cup went clanging to the earth, the blood of the grape flowing out to enrich once more the ground from which it had been derived; and the tyrant hero rushed away. The slaves had a new master, thereafter; and though Ancæus may have supped with the gods on Olympus, on the night when the great fight was over, he never tasted of that wine of his vineyard which had once even been lifted to his lips! So tasted not the diners on that mountain in a far distant land from that which held Olympus, even when the feast was spread and the call had been made for their gathering.
It is impossible to say what point of time elapsed before any member of that horrified company remembered the Rambler, his habits, the conversation of that morning, and the fact that he had only a few moments before been seen going in the direction from which that piteous cry was coming up. It is impossible to measure it, for at such moments ages of sensation pass in the very twinkling of an eye. Some of them did remember him, with a groan, and perhaps the thought was general. At all events the consternation was so—as general as if some one who had come away from the Crawford with them in life and high hope, had suddenly been stricken dead before their eyes. Margaret Hayley, with the frightened cry which even then shaped a feeling: "Oh, Mr. Townsend, what can that be!" dropped from the swing and was caught in arms outstretched to receive her. By that time all seated around the table-cloths had sprung to their feet; and at once every member of the party, male and female, impelled by a curiosity that even overmastered fear, rushed down the plateau towards the edge, as if some horrible madness had seized all and they were about to spring off into the great chasm below. But before they had reached the edge all the ladies except two and several of the gentlemen recoiled; and it was only by degrees and under the compelling attraction of that still ascending cry, that some of those remaining could force themselves to the verge. Those who reached it at that moment, and those who closed up the instant after, saw enough to make Blondin and his brother-fools a non-necessity for the balance of their natural lives; and the cry from below was answered, be sure, by a cry that rang from every voice above when the sad spectacle met the eye.
It was indeed the subject of their past fear who supplied their present horror; and the situation, keeping in view previous descriptions of the locality, may be briefly conveyed.
It will be remembered that at the bend or elbow of the gulch, some thirty feet below, two fangs of the root of a tree stretched out partially across the chasm, the upper long and at some distance from the rock of the bottom, the other shorter and lying very near it. It will also be remembered that beneath both the schute stretched its long blue jagged line to the foot of the mountain, not less than fifteen hundred or two thousand feet, with the air between the top and bottom looking actually blue from distance,—and that the schute itself was so nearly perpendicular that while any object falling down it would probably touch it all the way from top to bottom, it would go down almost with the velocity of the lightning and be rolled and pounded to a mere ball before it had accomplished half of the descent.
On that lower fang of the root hung the Rambler—those who had seen him at the Crawford recognized him at once, at that short distance; and it was indeed from that throat so little accustomed to call for assistance from any mortal hand, that the terrible cries of agony and appeals for help were ascending. One hand grasped the root near the end, without being able to go nearly round it, and one leg was caught round the root farther towards the tree, with the bend at the knee forming a kind of hook so long as it could retain its tension. The other arm and leg hung down, with the body, below, and the long grizzled hair streamed away from the head that depended downward in the direction towards which it seemed to be so fatally tending. The face could be seen, as that was turned towards the cliff, but its expression could not be recognized at that distance and in the reversed position that it occupied. All that could be known, to any certainty, was that there hung a human being, evidently unable even to recover a safer hold upon the root, screaming for help that was hopeless, and as certain to make the last plunge within a space of time that could be measured by single minutes, or perhaps even by seconds, as the sun was certain to move on in its course and the earth to retain its laws of gravitation!
Was there not cause, indeed, for that general cry of pitying horror from above, which answered the cry of agony and terror from below?
CHAPTER XX.
Suspense in Danger, in two Senses—Horace Townsend with a New Thought—The use of a Swing-rope—An Invitation to Captain Hector Coles—A fearful piece of Amateur Gymnastics—Going down into the Schute—Success or Failure?—The Event, and Margaret Hayley's Madness—Two Unfortunate Declarations.