Clare, completely oblivious of her distress, stared calmly out to sea.
"Oh, Muriel, there's such a big steamer on the horizon. Do hurry up and tell me where it's going."
But Muriel could not hurry. She was beyond hope, beyond sight, almost beyond fear. For she had just remembered Freddy Mason's stories of the Ladder, and how the men carrying sacks up it had overbalanced and fallen to their doom, far in the yard below.
Her grasp loosened. Rock and sky swung round her. Her feet slipped on the narrow ledge.
She must not fail Clare; here was the time to test her courage.
Fear swooped upon her, tore her fingers from the rock, poured drops of perspiration on her forehead.
"Clare!" shrieked a voice that was not surely hers. "Clare, I'm slipping!"
Clare's round face appeared between the edge of the rock and the reeling sky. Clare's voice remarked imperturbably: "Oh, well, if you do fall you haven't far to go, so it won't hurt. But hold on a bit and I'll give you a hand."
She came over the edge again. Her solid, shapely ankles were on a level with Muriel's hat, her eyes. A firm hand reached down for Muriel's clutching, sticky one.
"That's all right. Come along. You've got a great dab of mud on your nose, Muriel."