eking a foothold, desperately afraid to relinquish her
hold and trust herself unreservedly to his single-handed strength. But,
as he waited, it came to her that it was the only thing to do. With a
gasp she freed one hand at length and reaching back as he held her she
thrust it over his shoulder.

"Now the other hand, please!" he said.

She did not know how she did it. It was like loosing her grip upon life
itself. Yet after a few seconds of torturing irresolution she obeyed him,
abandoning her last hold and hanging to him in palpitating apprehension.

He put forth his full strength then. She felt the strain of his
muscles as he gathered her up with one arm. With the other hand, had
she but known it, he was grasping only the naked rock. Yet he moved
as if absolutely sure of himself. He drew a deep hard breath, and
began to mount.

It was only a few feet to the top as he had said, but the climb seemed
to her unending. She was conscious throughout that his endurance was
being put to the utmost test, and only by the most complete passivity
could she help him.

But he never faltered, and finally--just when she had begun to wonder if
this awful nightmare of danger could ever cease--she found herself set
down upon the dewy grass that covered the top of the cliff. The scent of
the gorse bushes came again to her and the far sweet call of the
nightingale. And she realized that the danger was past and she was back
once more in the magic region of her summer dreams from which she had
been so rudely flung. She saw again the shimmering, wonderful sea and the
ever-brightening stars. One of them hung, a golden globe of light like a
beacon on the dim horizon.

Then Columbus came pushing and nuzzling against her, full of tender
enquiries and congratulations; and something that she did not fully
understand made her turn and clasp him closely with a sudden rush of
tears. The danger was over, all over. And never till this moment had she
realized how amazingly sweet was life.

CHAPTER IV

BROTHER DICK

She covered her emotion with the most herculean efforts at gaiety. She
laughed very shakily at the solicitude expressed by Columbus, and told
him tremulously how absurd and ridiculous he was to make such a fuss
about nothing.

After this, feeling a little better, she ventured a glance at her
companion. He was on his feet and wiping his forehead--a man of medium
height and no great breadth of shoulder, but evidently well kn