the rocking-stone. "Make way then for Kallikrates."

This settled me; it is better to fall down a precipice and die than
be laughed at by such a woman; so I clenched my teeth, and in another
instant I was on that horrible, narrow, bending plank, with bottomless
space beneath and around me. I have always hated a great height, but
never before did I realise the full horrors of which such a position is
capable. Oh, the sickening sensation of that yielding board resting on
the two moving supports. I grew dizzy, and thought that I must fall;
my spine _crept_; it seemed to me that I was falling, and my delight at
finding myself sprawling upon that stone, which rose and fell beneath me
like a boat in a swell, cannot be expressed in words. All I know is that
briefly, but earnestly enough, I thanked Providence for preserving me so
far.

Then came Leo's turn, and though he looked rather queer, he came across
like a rope-dancer. Ayesha stretched out her hand to clasp his own, and
I heard her say, "Bravely done, my love--bravely done! The old Greek
spirit lives in thee yet!"

And now only poor Job remained on the farther side of the gulf. He crept
up to the plank, and yelled out, "I can't do it, sir. I shall fall into
that beastly place."

"You must," I remember saying with inappropriate facetiousness--"you
must, Job, it's as easy as catching flies." I suppose that I must
have said it to satisfy my conscience, because although the expression
conveys a wonderful idea of facility, as a matter of fact I know no more
difficult operation in the whole world than catching flies--that is, in
warm weather, unless, indeed, it is catching mosquitoes.

"I can't, sir--I can't, indeed."

"Let the man come, or let him stop and perish there. See, the light is
dying! In a moment it will be gone!" said Ayesha.

I looked. She was right. The sun was passing below the level of the hole
or cleft in the precipice through which the ray reached us.

"If you stop there, Job, you will die alone," I called; "the light is
going."

"Come, be a man, Job," roared Leo; "it's quite easy."

Thus adjured, the miserable Job, with a most awful yell, precipitated
himself face downwards on the plank--he did not dare, small blame to
him, to try to walk it, and commenced to draw himself across in little
jerks, his poor legs hanging down on either side into the nothingness
beneath.

His violent jerks at the frail board made the great stone, which was
only bala