very verge.
Then I saw that she was blind. She lifted her foot for the next step
. . . it trod air. She was over, and the children over with her. Oh,
the cry as they went over!

Then I saw more streams of people flowing from all quarters. All were
blind, stone blind; all made straight for the precipice edge. There were
shrieks as they suddenly knew themselves falling, and a tossing up of
helpless arms, catching, clutching at empty air. But some went over
quietly, and fell without a sound.

Then I wondered, with a wonder that was simply agony, why no one stopped
them at the edge. I could not. I was glued to the ground, and I could
not call; though I strained and tried, only a whisper would come.

Then I saw that along the edge there were sentries set at intervals. But
the intervals were far too great; there were wide, unguarded gaps
between. And over these gaps the people fell in their blindness, quite
unwarned; and the green grass seemed blood-red to me, and the gulf
yawned like the mouth of hell.

Then I saw, like a little picture of peace, a group of people under some
trees, with their backs turned towards the gulf. They were making daisy
chains. Sometimes when a piercing shriek cut the quiet air and reached
them it disturbed them, and they thought it a rather vulgar noise. And
if one of their number started up and wanted to go and do something to
help, then all the others would pull that one down. "Why should you get
so excited about it? You must wait for a definite call to go! You
haven't finished your daisy chains yet. It would be really selfish,"
they said, "to leave us to finish the work alone."

There was another group. It was made up of people whose great desire was
to get more sentries out; but they found that very few wanted to go, and
sometimes there were no sentries set for miles and miles of the edge.

Once a girl stood alone in her place, waving the people back; but her
mother and other relations called, and reminded her that her furlough
was due; she must not break the rules. And being tired and needing a
change, she had to go and rest for awhile; but no one was sent to guard
her gap, and over and over the people fell, like a waterfall of souls.

Once a child caught at a tuft of grass that grew at the very brink of
the gulf; it clung convulsively, and it called--but nobody seemed to
hear. Then the roots of the grass gave way, and with a cry the child
went over, its two little hands still holding