第78章

I cannot bear to look at that cliff,said Elfride.It has a horrid personality,and makes me shudder.We will go.

Can you climb?said Knight.If so,we will ascend by that path over the grim old fellows brow.

Try me,said Elfride disdainfully.I have ascended steeper slopes than that.

From where they had been loitering,a grassy path wound along inside a bank,placed as a safeguard for unwary pedestrians,to the top of the precipice,and over it along the hill in an inland direction.

Take my arm,Miss Swancourt,said Knight.

I can get on better without it,thank you.

When they were one quarter of the way up,Elfride stopped to take breath.Knight stretched out his hand.

She took it,and they ascended the remaining slope together.

Reaching the very top,they sat down to rest by mutual consent.

Heavens,what an altitude!said Knight between his pants,and looking far over the sea.The cascade at the bottom of the slope appeared a mere span in height from where they were now.

Elfride was looking to the left.The steamboat was in full view again,and by reason of the vast surface of sea their higher position uncovered it seemed almost close to the shore.

Over that edge,said Knight,where nothing but vacancy appears,is a moving compact mass.The wind strikes the face of the rock,runs up it,rises like a fountain to a height far above our heads,curls over us in an arch,and disperses behind us.In fact,an inverted cascade is there--as perfect as the Niagara Falls--but rising instead of falling,and air instead of water.Now look here.

Knight threw a stone over the bank,aiming it as if to go onward over the cliff.Reaching the verge,it towered into the air like a bird,turned back,and alighted on the ground behind them.They themselves were in a dead calm.

A boat crosses Niagara immediately at the foot of the falls,where the water is quite still,the fallen mass curving under it.

We are in precisely the same position with regard to our atmospheric cataract here.If you run back from the cliff fifty yards,you will be in a brisk wind.Now I daresay over the bank is a little backward current.

Knight rose and leant over the bank.No sooner was his head above it than his hat appeared to be sucked from his head--slipping over his forehead in a seaward direction.

Thats the backward eddy,as I told you,he cried,and vanished over the little bank after his hat.

Elfride waited one minute;he did not return.She waited another,and there was no sign of him.

A few drops of rain fell,then a sudden shower.

She arose,and looked over the bank.On the other side were two or three yards of level ground--then a short steep preparatory slope--then the verge of the precipice.

On the slope was Knight,his hat on his head.He was on his hands and knees,trying to climb back to the level ground.The rain had wetted the shaly surface of the incline.A slight superficial wetting of the soil hereabout made it far more slippery to stand on than the same soil thoroughly drenched.The inner substance was still hard,and was lubricated by the moistened film.

I find a difficulty in getting back,said Knight.

Elfrides heart fell like lead.

But you can get back?she wildly inquired.

Knight strove with all his might for two or three minutes,and the drops of perspiration began to bead his brow.

No,I am unable to do it,he answered.

Elfride,by a wrench of thought,forced away from her mind the sensation that Knight was in bodily danger.But attempt to help him she must.She ventured upon the treacherous incline,propped herself with the closed telescope,and gave him her hand before he saw her movements.

O Elfride!why did you?said he.I am afraid you have only endangered yourself.

And as if to prove his statement,in making an endeavour by her assistance they both slipped lower,and then he was again stayed.

His foot was propped by a bracket of quartz rock,balanced on the verge of the precipice.Fixed by this,he steadied her,her head being about a foot below the beginning of the slope.Elfride had dropped the glass;it rolled to the edge and vanished over it into a nether sky.

Hold tightly to me,he said.

She flung her arms round his neck with such a firm grasp that whilst he remained it was impossible for her to fall.

Dont be flurried,Knight continued.So long as we stay above this block we are perfectly safe.Wait a moment whilst I consider what we had better do.

He turned his eyes to the dizzy depths beneath them,and surveyed the position of affairs.

Two glances told him a tale with ghastly distinctness.It was that,unless they performed their feat of getting up the slope with the precision of machines,they were over the edge and whirling in mid-air.

For this purpose it was necessary that he should recover the breath and strength which his previous efforts had cost him.So he still waited,and looked in the face of the enemy.

The crest of this terrible natural facade passed among the neighbouring inhabitants as being seven hundred feet above the water it overhung.It had been proved by actual measurement to be not a foot less than six hundred and fifty.