I waited for two or three seconds in the wildest impatience.
'Let's follow her now,' I said.
'No, no,' she whispered, 'not yet, 'less you want to see her tumble down the cliff.' After a few minutes Sinfi and I went up the main pathway. Winnie seemed to have slackened her pace when she was out of sight, for we saw her just turning away on the right at the point indicated by Sinfi. 'Give her time to get along that path,' said she, 'and then she'll be all right.'
In a state of agonised suspense I stood there waiting. At last I said:
'I must go after her. We shall lose her—I know we shall lose her.'
Sinfi demurred a moment, then acceded to my wish, and we went up the main pathway and peered round the corner of the jutting rock where Winifred had last been visible. There, along a ragged shelf bordering a yawning chasm—a shelf that seemed to me scarce wide enough for a human foot—Winifred was running and balancing herself as surely as a bird over the abyss.
'Mind she doesn't turn round sharp and see you,' said the Gypsy. 'If she does she'll lose her head and over she'll fall!'
I crouched and gazed at Winifred as she glided along towards a vast mountain of vapour that was rolling over the chasm close to her. She stood and looked into the floating mass for a moment, and then passed into it and was lost from view.
VI
'Now I can follow her,' said Sinfi; 'but you mustn't try to come along here. Wait till I come back. I suppose you've given her all the breakfiss. Give me a drop of brandy out o' your flask.'