To his horror, he found that he could not return. From the narrow ledge it was impossible to pass to the wider, although it had been possible to pass from the wider to the narrow. For an instant he was on the point of toppling back; but he let his body fall forward against the face of the cliff, and there he rested, gripping the rock with both hands until the faintness passed.
The situation was quite plain to him. He was standing on a ledge, as wide as his feet were long, some two or three hundred feet above the sea; his face was to the cliff, and he could neither sit down nor turn round. There he must stand until—who could tell? In what way could relief come to him? Who was to see? Who could hear his cries for help? No fishermen were on the grounds—no punts were out of the harbour; the sea was too high for that, as he had been told.
There was only one answer to his question. He must stand until—he fell.
"Yes," he was courageous enough to admit calmly, "I 'low I got t' go."
That once admitted, his terror of that space behind and below in some measure departed. The sun was still shining; the sky—as he knew, for he could catch a glimpse of it on each side—was still blue. But soon he began to think of the night; then his terror returned—not of the present moment, but of the hours of darkness approaching.
Could he endure until night? He thought not. His position was awkward. Surely his strength would wear out—his hands weaken, although the strain upon them was slight; his legs give way.
Of course he followed the natural impulse to cling to his life as long as he could. Thus, while the afternoon dragged along and the dusk approached, he stood on the face of the cliff, waiting for the moment when his weakening strength would fail and he would fall to his death.
"In an hour," he thought; soon it was, "In half an hour."
Before that last half-hour had passed he felt something brush past his back. It frightened him. What was it? Again he felt it. Again it startled and frightened him. Then he felt it no more for a time, and he was glad of that. He was too dull, perhaps, to dwell upon the mystery of that touch. It passed from his mind. Soon he felt it for the third time. Was it a wing? He wondered, too, if he had not heard a voice; for it seemed to him that some one had hailed him.