ng much
longer."

With a desperate effort I cut at the rein, and divided it close to the
mule's mouth.

He started back a few inches, tightening the other rein; but now, once
more, I was grasping the rein with both hands lest it should slip
through my fingers, and at the same moment the knife fell, striking Tom
on the cheek and making the blood spurt out, before flying down--down to
a depth that was horrible to contemplate.

It was a fearful time, and as I crouched there a cold sensation seemed
to be creeping through the marrow of all my bones. We could not raise
Tom for the mule, I could not cut the rein, and upon asking I found that
the guide had no knife, and, what was worse, it was evident that he was
losing nerve.

I dared not try to heave--it would have been madness, cumbered and
crowded together as we were; and in those brief moments of agony it
seemed to me that I was Tom's murderer, for, but on account of my wild
thirst for coming abroad, he might have been safe at home.

"Try--try again, Mas'r Harry, please," whispered the poor fellow
imploringly; "I shouldn't like to die out here in these savage parts,
nor yet this how. Make one more try to get rid of that beast."

As if to show that he was not all bad, just at the moment when it seemed
that all chance of saving poor Tom was gone, when our arms felt to be
dragging out of their sockets, and a something drawing me by a strange
fascination, joined to the weight, over the side of the precipice--the
mule gave a wild squeal, shook its head for an instant, seized the tight
rein in its teeth, and bit it through.

The next moment it gave a whinny of relief, planted its feet on my back
as I half lay down, leaped over me, and was out of our way; while how we
managed the next part I cannot say. All I know is that there was a
horrible struggle, a scrambling rush, the panting groans of those who
fought with grim death, and then I lay half-fainting upon the shelf,
with honest old Tom at my side.

"Thank Heaven!" I muttered.

"Amen, Mas'r Harry!" said Tom in a whisper; and then for some time no
one spoke.

Half an hour after, very quiet and sober of mien, we were leading our
mules down the shelf, unnerved and trembling, till once more the plain
was reached, and with it rest for the night.

CHAPTER TEN.

PLAYING AT HEROES.

And so we journeyed on day after day, through heat and dust, and arid,
stony lands; with my heart sinking lower and lower and th