hold to my shoulder she placed her feet upon the he made of his hand and was high enough to get a view of the natural surface of the hill over the bank can you now climb on to level ground � i am afraid not i will try what can you see � the sloping common � what upon it purple and some grass nothing more � no man or human being of any kind nobody � now try to get higher in this way you see that of sea pink above you get that well into your hand but don t trust to it entirely then step upon my shoulder and i think you will reach the top with trembling limbs she did exactly as he told her the quiet and solemnity of his manner a pair of blue eyes upon herself and gave her a courage not her own she made a spring from the top of his shoulder and was up then she turned to look at him by an ill fate the force downwards of her bound added to his own weight had been too much for the block of upon which his feet depended it was indeed originally an into the enormous masses of black which had since been worn away from the sides of the alien fragment by centuries of frost and rain and now left it without much support it moved knight seized a of sea pink with each hand the rock which had been his salvation was worse than useless now it rolled over out of sight and away into the same sky that had the one of the by which he held came out at the root and knight began to follow the it was a terrible moment uttered a low wild wail of agony bowed her head and covered her face with her hands between the turf covered slope and the gigantic perpendicular rock a weather worn series of jagged edges forming a face yet than the former slope as he slowly slid inch by inch upon these knight made a last desperate dash at the lowest of vegetation � the last knot of starved ere the rock appeared in all its it arrested his further descent knight was now literally suspended by his arms but the incline of the brow being what would call about a quarter in one it was sufficient to relieve his arms of a portion of his weight but was very far from offering an flat face to support him in spite of this dreadful of body and mind a pair of blue eyes knight found time for a moment of was safe she lay on her side above him � her fingers clasped seeing him again steady she jumped upon her feet now if i can only save you by running for help she cried oh i would have died instead why did you try so hard to deliver me and she turned away wildly to run for assistance how long will it take you to run to and back three quarters of an hour that won t do my hands will not hold out ten minutes and is there nobody nearer no unless a chance may happen to be he would have nothing with him that could save me is there a pole or stick of any kind on the common she gazed around the common was bare of everything but and grass a minute � perhaps more time � was passed in mute thought by both on a sudden the blank and helpless agony left her face she vanished over the bank from his sight knight felt himself in the presence of a loneliness a woman s way h cliffs of every ugly are as common as sea fowl along the line of coast between and land s end but this and specimen was the of them all their are not safe places for scientific experiment on the principles of air currents as knight had now found to his dismay he still clutched the face of the � not with the hold of despair but with a dogged determination to make the most of his every of endurance and so give the longest possible scope to s intentions whatever they might be he hand in hand with the world in its infancy not a blade not an insect which spoke of the present was between him and the past the of these black to all for life is in no way more forcibly suggested than by the of of grass or on their knight pondered on the meaning of s hasty disappearance but could not avoid an instinctive conclusion that there existed but a doubtful hope for him a pair of blue eyes as far as he could judge his sole chance of lay in the possibility of a rope or pole being brought and this possibility was remote indeed the soil upon these high downs was left so that they were for miles except by a casual bank or dry wall and were rarely visited but for the purpose of collecting or counting the flock which found a scanty means of at first when death appeared improbable because it had never visited him before knight could think of no future nor of anything connected with his past he could only look sternly at nature s treacherous attempt to put an end to him and strive to her from the fact that the cliff formed the inner face of the of a huge having the sky for a top and the sea for a bottom which enclosed the to the extent of more than a he could see the face round on each side of him he looked far down the and realized more thoroughly how it threatened him was in every feature and to its very the shape was desolation by one of those familiar of things wherewith the world 