There, for a while, he sat. He had set the lantern beside him. His hand was on Judith’s heart, and he held his breath, and waited to feel if there was pulsation there; but his own arteries were in such agitation, the throb in his finger ends prevented his being able to satisfy himself as to what he desired to know.
He could not remain longer in his present position. Judith might never revive. She had swooned through over-exhaustion, and nothing could restore her to life but the warmth and care she would receive in a house; he cursed his folly, his thoughtlessness, in having brought with him no flask of brandy. He dared remain no longer where he was, the ebbing powers in the feeble life might sink beyond recall.
He thrust his right arm under her, and adjusted the chain about him so as to throw some of her weight off the arm, and then cautiously slid to the step below, and, holding her, set his back to the rocky wall.
So, facing the Atlantic Ocean, facing the wild night sky, torn here and there into flakes of light, otherwise cloaked in storm-gloom, with the abyss below, an abyss of jagged rock and shingle shore, he began to make his way along the track by which he had gained that point.
He was at that part where the shelf narrowed to a foot, and his safety and hers depended largely on the power that remained to him in his left arm. With the hand of that arm he felt along and clutched every projecting point of rock, and held to it with every sinew strained and starting. He drew a long breath. Was Judith stirring on his arm?
The critical minute had come. The slightest movement, the least displacement of the balance, and both would be precipitated below.
“Judith!” said he, hoarsely, turning his head toward her ear. “Judith!”
There was no reply.
“Judith! For Heaven’s sake—if you hear me—do not lift a finger. Do not move a muscle.”
The same heavy weight on him without motion.