"Is that you, Father?"
"Yes. For heaven's sake be careful, Jack. It is a sheer drop. Wait a moment."
Mr. Brown struck a match. Jack peered over the edge. There, some fifteen feet below, on a broad ledge of rock sprayed by the waterfall that plunged past it into a dark abyss, stood his father and Count Walewski. The rock above them was perpendicular and smooth; on either side of them the ledge rounded inwards; in front of them yawned the unfathomable gulf. As he looked, the match went out, and with the return of complete darkness a feeling of terror seized upon him; his limbs shook, his skin broke into a cold sweat.
"Are you there, old boy?"
"Yes."
"You've no matches, I suppose?"
"No, but—of course, I've a candle-end." Jack was pulling himself together. "Do you think you could pitch up your box, Father?"
"I can try. I'll strike a match; the count will hold it so that I can get an aim."
Both spoke in a loud tone, to be heard above the splash and roar of the fall. Count Walewski held the lighted match aloft; Jack stretched himself to the edge of the precipice; his father, retreating a few feet along the ledge, took careful aim, and tossed the box of matches gently into Jack's outstretched hands. In a moment the scene was faintly illumined.
"You see how we stand, Jack; can you get us up?"