easy," he said cheerily, "but every foot climbed will be one
less to get up. So, here goes."

As he ceased speaking he drew a deep breath, and then feeling that
safety depended upon his being firm, cool, and deliberate, he made his
way from the mouth of the hole along the ledge upon which he stood, till
he found a spot where he could ascend higher.

It was necessary that he should find such a spot, for the ledge had
grown narrower and in another yard died completely away. So, raising
his hands to their full extent, he found a place for one foot, then for
the other, repeated the experiment, and was just going to draw himself
up to a ledge similar to that which he had just left, when one foot
slipped from the stone upon which it rested, and had the lad lost his
nerve he must have fallen headlong.

But he held on tightly, waited a minute to let the jarring sensation
pass away, depending upon his hands and one foot. Then calmly searching
about he found firm foothold, raised himself, and the next moment he was
on the green ledge.

"Wouldn't have done to tumble," he said with a hall laugh. "Fall's one
thing, a dive another. I suppose the water's pretty deep down there."

The ledge he was now on was fully a foot wide, and the refuse and fish
bones with which it was strewn told plainly enough that in the spring
time it was the resting--perhaps nesting--place of the sea-birds which
swarmed along the coast.

As he stood facing the rock he found directly that he could not get any
farther to his right, and a little search proved that from this ledge he
could get no higher, not even had he been provided with a ladder. Even
if a rope had been lowered down to him from the top of the cliff, it
would have been of no avail, for he realised now that which he could not
see from the hole by which he had escaped, to wit, that the cliff
projected above the opening, and a lowered down rope would have hung
several feet right away clear.

"Get farther along," he said coolly; and he edged himself slowly along,
taking hold of every prominence he found to steady himself, and passing
cautiously along the rough ledge over the hole, and then onward for
forty or fifty feet, where a rift ran upward, and, by cautious climbing,
he mounted slowly till he was on a fresh ledge, a few feet above which
was another rift, and he climbed again, to come to a depression or
niche, where he stopped to rest.

"No occasion to hurry," he said to himself,