said, as we stared at him, as one needs must
stare at one who comes back as it were from the grave. "My head
swims even yet."

I grasped his hand and helped him to the grass, and once there he
stood upright and shook himself, looking round in an astonished way
as he did so.

"No broken bones," he said. "Where is Elfrida? Is she all right? I
was rough with her, I fear, but I could not help it. Could I have
managed otherwise?"

"In no way better," I said, finding my tongue at length. "She has
gone to the village. But where have you been!"

"In a long hole just over here," he answered. "But how long has she
been gone?"

"How long do you think that you have been in your hole?"

"A few minutes. It cannot be long. Yet it must have been longer
than I thought, for the shadows are changed."

It was a full hour and a half since he fell, but I did not say so,
lest it should be some sort of shock to him. So I bade him sit down
while I saw to a cut there was on his head--the only sign of hurt
that he had.

"I thought that I was done for at first," he said.

"So thought I, until we found that you were not at the bottom. Even
now some of us have gone for ropes that we might search the cliff
for you. We could not see you anywhere, and there does not seem to
be any ledge here that could catch you."

"Why, you could have touched me with a spear all the time, if you
had known where to thrust it. I think I fainted, or somewhat
foolish of the sort. My head hit the rock as I went over. Also the
horse ground me between it and the cliff, so that all my breath
went. But that pushed me into the hole, and I will not grumble. At
least, I think that was it, but I cannot be sure. My senses went."

He began to laugh, but suddenly turned to me with a new look on his
face.

"Oh, but was Elfrida feared for me?--What did she think?"

"She saw nought of it," I said. "I believe that she had fainted
with terror when you laid hold of her. The ealdorman came and took
her to the village, and I do not suppose she knows that you have
been lost."

"That is well," he said, with his great sigh. "Look over and see my
hole."

I did not care to look over again, and, moreover, knew that I could
not see it. I mind every jutting stone and twisted yew that is on
the cliff there, to this day. However, one of the others went a
little to one side, where Erpwald had appeared, and swung himself
to the tiny ledge that had given him foothold as he came up,