"Try me," said Elfride disdainfully. "I have ascended steeper slopes than that."
From where they had been loitering, a gra.s.sy 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 alt.i.tude!" 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 sh.o.r.e.
"Over that edge," said Knight, "where nothing but vacancy appears, is a moving compact ma.s.s. 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 ma.s.s 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.
"That"s 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.
Elfride"s 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 a.s.sistance 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 gla.s.s; 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.
"Don"t 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 pa.s.sed 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.
That is to say, it is nearly three times the height of Flamborough, half as high again as the South Foreland, a hundred feet higher than Beachy Head--the loftiest promontory on the east or south side of this island--twice the height of St. Aldhelm"s, thrice as high as the Lizard, and just double the height of St. Bee"s. One sea-bord point on the western coast is known to surpa.s.s it in alt.i.tude, but only by a few feet. This is Great Orme"s Head, in Caernarvonshire.
And it must be remembered that the cliff exhibits an intensifying feature which some of those are without--sheer perpendicularity from the half-tide level.
Yet this remarkable rampart forms no headland: it rather walls in an inlet--the promontory on each side being much lower. Thus, far from being salient, its horizontal section is concave. The sea, rolling direct from the sh.o.r.es of North America, has in fact eaten a chasm into the middle of a hill, and the giant, embayed and un.o.btrusive, stands in the rear of pigmy supporters. Not least singularly, neither hill, chasm, nor precipice has a name. On this account I will call the precipice the Cliff without a Name.*
* See Preface
What gave an added terror to its height was its blackness. And upon this dark face the beating of ten thousand west winds had formed a kind of bloom, which had a visual effect not unlike that of a Hambro" grape.
Moreover it seemed to float off into the atmosphere, and inspire terror through the lungs.
"This piece of quartz, supporting my feet, is on the very nose of the cliff," said Knight, breaking the silence after his rigid stoical meditation. "Now what you are to do is this. Clamber up my body till your feet are on my shoulders: when you are there you will, I think, be able to climb on to level ground."
"What will you do?"
"Wait whilst you run for a.s.sistance."
"I ought to have done that in the first place, ought I not?"
"I was in the act of slipping, and should have reached no stand-point without your weight, in all probability. But don"t let us talk. Be brave, Elfride, and climb."
She prepared to ascend, saying, "This is the moment I antic.i.p.ated when on the tower. I thought it would come!"
"This is not a time for superst.i.tion," said Knight. "Dismiss all that."
"I will," she said humbly.
"Now put your foot into my hand: next the other. That"s good--well done.
Hold to my shoulder."
She placed her feet upon the stirrup 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."