he
party.

"Now or never!" exclaimed Sir Reginald. "I am going to make a jump for
her. We shall scarcely have a better chance; and breeze may at any
moment sweep round the face of the rock and carry her away from us.
Lethbridge and Mildmay, let me steady myself by your shoulders whilst I
stand on the extreme point of the rock. Stand firm, now; I am about to
jump. Are you ready? Then--one--_two_--THREE!"

The body of the baronet darted outward from the face of the rock,
Mildmay and the colonel retaining their footing with the utmost
difficulty under the recoil from the outward impulse; and then the three
men left behind on the rock craned their necks over the precipice to
watch the result.

The sight which met their eyes caused their hair to bristle and their
blood to curdle with horror. Sir Reginald had either miscalculated his
distance, or his foot had slipped in the act of springing, for instead
of alighting upon the ship's deck, as he had intended, he had fallen on
the circular bilge of the vessel, from whence, after an unavailing
struggle to secure a footing, he slid off, and, with a piercing scream,
went whirling downward until he alighted on the narrow snow-bank some
two hundred feet below. His horror-stricken companions fully expected
to see him rebound and go plunging over the edge of the next precipice,
but luckily the snow upon which he had fallen was so deep that his body
sank into it, and there he lay, motionless.

"Merciful Heaven, he is killed!" ejaculated the colonel with stammering
lips.

"Perhaps not," returned Mildmay; "at all events we will hope for the
best. Let me see if I can do better. _Quick_--out of the way--ah! The
wind after all! We are too late!"

And even as he spoke the bows of the _Flying Fish_ swung slowly round,
and her hull was swept gently away from the face of the cliff by a
capricious zephyr which just then came creeping along the mountain side.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

HOW THE ADVENTURE TERMINATED.

The silence of despair again settled upon the three remaining
travellers; they had lost one of their party, and were a second time
left stranded upon that terrible mountain top, from which it now began
to appear that there was no possibility of escape. One thing at least
was certain, which was, that on their side of the mountain there was no
means of further descent; the pinnacle of rock upon which they then
stood was the lowest accessible point; there was no p