What does the author ask you, as the imaginary spectator, to do? To throw your head back and look upward.
Why? The precipice towers perpendicularly many hundred feet above you. He wishes you to imagine you are standing on this road and the scene is taking place before your eyes.
What do you see? A hunter in pursuit of a chamois.
Describe this hunter. He is lofty and chivalrous in his bearing.
What happens? He is bounding on after a chamois toward the edge of a precipice, when he loses his footing and falls.
How does the author make you see this plainly? He uses the present tense, as if the scene were happening now—"is bounding", "loses his footing", "rolls helplessly".
Any other way? Yes, he utters exclamations, "Mark!" "Ah!" Every act is told in the form of an exclamation.
"What is it that arrests him?" This is a question. Does the author expect an answer? No, he asks the question as I would ask it of myself if I saw the hunter stopped in his descent.
Why does he not tell you who this hunter is? I see now for the first time that it is the great Emperor Maximilian who is in such peril.
Does any one else see him? Yes, the Abbot, or head of a neighbouring monastery.