ppear in her
behaviour. Gingerly, but without hesitation, and clutching the
telescope, which impeded her as an ice-axe the rock-climber, she
essayed all the perils of this maiden ascent.

Five minutes' stiff climbing, as they say in the _Alpine Journal_,
brought her to a point where she could take breath and look about
her. Despite her terror, the excitement and the light breeze now
blowing over the _arete_ of garden wall, had brought a flush to her
cheek. But scarcely had she resumed and set her foot upon the
summit, when the flush suddenly faded, and left her blanched as snow.

For there, not a foot to her right, and above the crest of the
partition wall, rose another telescope, the exact counterpart of her
own!

The Spectre on the Brocken was nothing to this.

She clutched at the rotten stones and panted for breath.
Slowly, very slowly, the rival telescope was tilted up against the
harbour-wall; very slowly it rose in air. Then came a pair of
hands--of blue cuffs--and then--the crimson face of Admiral Buzza
soared into view, like the child's head in _Macbeth_.

He did not see her yet, being absorbed in adjusting the telescope.
Terror-smitten, too fearful to advance or retreat, clinging to the
telescope with one hand as a drowning mariner might grasp a spar, and
clutching with the other at the crumbling wall, Miss Limpenny stood
arrested, wildly staring, scarce venturing to breathe.

The Admiral's telescope was tilted into position, and the Admiral
half-turned his head before applying his eye to the hole.

She could not help it. In spite of all her efforts to repress it, a
little gasping squeal of affright broke from her. The Admiral, with
a start, withdrew his eye quickly from the glass, and looked over the
wall.

"Damnation!" (This was the Admiral, by the way.)

What happened exactly at this moment will never be known. Whether a
stone underfoot gave way, or whether the Admiral's voice brought down
a _serac_ of rotten wall, is not clear. There was a rumbling sound,
an oath or two--and then both telescope and Admiral disappeared, with
a crash, from view.

Miss Limpenny screamed, dropped her telescope, which went rattling
down the steps, cowered desperately against the wall, shut her eyes,
screamed again, trod on a tilting slab, hung for a moment, toppled,
clutched wildly at space, and shot, with a rush and shower of stones,
straight to the very bottom.

Miss Lavinia Limpenny, who, startled by th