the roots
of a projecting cedar. She retained no longer any memory for Hampton;
her brain was completely terrorized. Inch by inch, foot by foot,
clinging to a fragment of rock here, grasping a slippery branch there,
occasionally helped by encountering a deeper gash in the face of the
precipice, her movements concealed by the scattered cedars, she toiled
feverishly up, led by instinct, like any wild animal desperately driven
by fear, and only partially conscious of the real dread of her terrible
position. The first time she became aware that Hampton was closely
following was when her feet slipped along a naked root, and she would
have plunged headlong into unknown depths had she not come into sudden
contact with his supporting shoulder. Faint and dizzy, and trembling
like the leaf of an aspen, she crept forward onto a somewhat wider
ledge of thin rock, and lay there quivering painfully from head to
foot. A moment of suspense, and he was outstretched beside her,
resting at full length along the very outer edge, his hand closing
tightly over her own.

"Remain perfectly quiet," he whispered, panting heavily. "We can be no
safer anywhere else."

She could distinguish the rapid pounding of his heart as well as her
own, mingled with the sharp intake of their heavy breathing, but these
sounds were soon overcome by that of the tumult below. Shots and
yells, the dull crash of blows, the shouts of men engaged in a death
grapple, the sharp crackling of innumerable rifles, the inarticulate
moans of pain, the piercing scream of sudden torture, were borne upward
to them from out the blackness. They did not venture to lift their
heads from off the hard rock; the girl sobbed silently, her slender
form trembling; the fingers of the man closed more tightly about her
hand. All at once the hideous uproar ceased with a final yelping of
triumph, seemingly reechoed the entire length of the chasm, in the
midst of which one single voice pleaded pitifully,--only to die away in
a shriek. The two agonized fugitives lay listening, their ears
strained to catch the slightest sound from below. The faint radiance
of a single star glimmered along the bald front of the cliff, but
Hampton, peering cautiously across the edge, could distinguish nothing.
His ears could discern evidences of movement, and he heard guttural
voices calling at a distance, but to the vision all was black. The
distance those faint sounds appeared away made his head ree