e stone, some three or four and thirty feet, and sprang wildly out
into the dizzy air. Oh! the sickening terrors that I felt as I launched
myself at that little point of rock, and the horrible sense of despair
that shot through my brain as I realised that I had _jumped short!_ but
so it was, my feet never touched the point, they went down into space,
only my hands and body came in contact with it. I gripped at it with
a yell, but one hand slipped, and I swung right round, holding by the
other, so that I faced the stone from which I had sprung. Wildly I
stretched up with my left hand, and this time managed to grasp a knob of
rock, and there I hung in the fierce red light, with thousands of feet
of empty air beneath me. My hands were holding to either side of
the under part of the spur, so that its point was touching my head.
Therefore, even if I could have found the strength, I could not pull
myself up. The most that I could do would be to hang for about a minute,
and then drop down, down into the bottomless pit. If any man can imagine
a more hideous position, let him speak! All I know is that the torture
of that half-minute nearly turned my brain.

I heard Leo give a cry, and then suddenly saw him in mid air springing
up and out like a chamois. It was a splendid leap that he took under the
influence of his terror and despair, clearing the horrible gulf as if it
were nothing, and, landing well on to the rocky point, he threw himself
upon his face, to prevent his pitching off into the depths. I felt the
spur above me shake beneath the shock of his impact, and as it did so I
saw the huge rocking-stone, that had been violently depressed by him as
he sprang, fly back when relieved of his weight till, for the first time
during all these centuries, it got beyond its balance, fell with a
most awful crash right into the rocky chamber which had once served the
philosopher Noot for a hermitage, and, I have no doubt, for ever sealed
the passage that leads to the Place of Life with some hundreds of tons
of rock.

All this happened in a second, and curiously enough, notwithstanding my
terrible position, I noted it involuntarily, as it were. I even remember
thinking that no human being would go down that dread path again.

Next instant I felt Leo seize me by the right wrist with both hands. By
lying flat on the point of rock he could just reach me.

"You must let go and swing yourself clear," he said in a calm and
collected voice,