n they had to pass over a narrow ledge, on
one side of which a precipice descended towards the valley, while the
other side rose upwards like a wall. It was not necessarily a dangerous
place. They had passed it often before in safety, none of the party
being troubled with giddiness; but at this time Robin had unfortunately
hung his bundle of ducks on the side which had to brush past the rocky
wall. As he passed, the bunch struck a projection and threw him off his
balance. In the effort to recover himself he dislodged a piece of rock
under his left foot, and, without even a cry, went headlong over the
precipice!

Poor Letta stood rooted to the spot, too horrified to scream. She saw
her friend, on whom all her hopes were built, go crashing through the
foliage immediately below the precipice edge, and disappear. It was the
first terrible shock she had ever received. With a convulsive shudder
she ran by a dangerously steep route towards the foot of the precipice.

But Robin had not yet met his doom, although he had descended full sixty
feet. His fall was broken by several leafy trees, through which he went
like an avalanche; and a thick solid bush receiving him at the foot,
checked his descent entirely, and slid him quietly off its boughs on to
the grass, where he lay, stunned, indeed, but otherwise uninjured.

Poor Letta of course was horrified, on reaching the spot, to find that
Robin could not speak, and was to all appearance dead. In an agony of
terror she shrieked, and shook him and called him by name--to awaken
him, as she afterwards said; but Robin's sleep was too deep at that
moment to be dispelled by such measures. Letta therefore sprang up and
ran as fast as she could to the cavern to tell the terrible news and
fetch assistance.

Robin, however, was not left entirely alone in his extremity. It so
chanced that a remarkably small monkey was seated among the boughs of a
neighbouring tree, eating a morsel of fruit, when Letta's first scream
sounded through the grove. Cocking up one ear, it arrested its little
hand on the way to its lesser mouth, and listened. Its little black
face was corrugated with the wrinkles of care--it might be of fun, we
cannot tell. The only large features of the creature were its eyes, and
these seemed to blaze, while the brows rose high, as if in surprise.

On hearing the second scream the small monkey laid hold of a bough with
its tail, swung itself off, and caught another