‘Are you mad?’ I exclaimed; ‘going over that narrow, frail, up-in-the-clouds thing? Why, it’s certain death if you fall.’
‘Even so, old man; but I have walked with sure steps narrower planks than this.’
‘Perhaps so; but not with a torrent rolling under you.—Don’t attempt it!’ I exclaimed; ‘wait until the waters go down.’
‘Wait! for four hours or more. Impossible! As I told you when we started, my errand is a vital one. I must be in Colombo on Sunday at the latest; and as to-day is Friday, to do that I must hit off to-morrow’s coach in Kandy. Well, you and the other fellows have often joked me about my Blondin-like propensities; I am going to try now how nearly I can tread upon the heels of that worthy acrobat. Never fear; I will get across safely enough. It is a pity, however, that the nigger architects have not been a little more liberal in their breadth of timber; but your Singhalese native is invariably a skinflint.’
Again I attempted to combat the foolhardiness of my friend; but he threw me off, said half jocosely, half in earnest:
‘I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die;’
and with the words in his mouth, began the crossing.
I am not, generally speaking, a nervous man, and I have had to witness some trying things in my time; but now I confess that fear and trembling came over me, and that I could not look upon my friend in his perilous transit. I half crouched and cowered behind a tree, my heart in my mouth, and every nerve strung to its utmost degree of tension. I expected every instant to hear a shriek, a splash, and then to see my friend buffeting with and carried away by the boiling torrent. Now and again, the voices of the old Singhalese and the Malabar horsekeepers, who had crept up to the neighbourhood of the bridge, broke upon my ears, first as if in tones of entreaty and warning, then in those of astonishment, and lastly in shouts of admiration and joy. At the jubilant sounds I roused myself, looked up, and hurrahed, too, at the very top of my voice, for on the opposite bank the adventurous judge stood safe and sound!
A weight such as I had never borne before was removed from my breast. ‘Thank goodness you’re all right!’ I called out.