Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/458

452 much given over to impulses. Like Leslie, as we have said, he was used to mountain-climbing. He had the promptitude of pluck almost in excess – a spurt would carry him at any time through critical danger; and he had the confidence that came of his Alpine experiences. He picked his way steadily along an aerial and almost imperceptible path, though the blood of the more phlegmatic Leslie ran cool in watching him, and the usually imperturbable Peter tossed his arms in the air. But his impetuosity had not counted with contingencies, as when, after zigzagging backwards and forwards, all within the space of the seventy yards, taking his final spring to the broad shelf where the goat lay, the gravel yielded under his feet. The rainfall of yesterday had sapped the bank; and the path he had so deftly cleared was breached effectually.

Exaltation is invariably followed by reaction. Had it all been comparatively smooth navigation, Jack's pluck and spirit would have carried him through. Now he must have felt something like Icarus, when the wax was melting on the aeronaut's pinions; and a paralysing horror settled down upon him as he knew his retreat to be cut off. His eyes swam; his brain turned dizzy; and he did what was probably the wisest thing in the circumstances, and subsided on the ground with his back to the abyss.

Venables's brain was in a swimming turmoil of confusion, and had he been left to himself or to Peter, his bolt would certainly have been shot. While, as for Leslie, who had been looking on in speechless horror, his thoughts were never more clear or definite. He had weighed the circumstances in a moment, and he felt hopelessly depressed. The life and death of his companion were hanging in the balance, and his interposition would probably in no degree avail. As for the dull and respectable Peter, he was paralysed. He was more at home, at the best of times, on the deck of a herring-boat than on the hills, and was made of any stuff rather than that of a hero. All in that supreme crisis depended upon Leslie – and the thoughts that were ordinarily somewhat sluggish had answered to the spur, and were working with the velocity of lightning. It was hopeless, or almost so, to save Venables; but it was absolutely impossible to go home without him. Fancy living on to tell the tale – or conceal it, – how he had left his comrade to perish within a stone-throw of him! Leslie was a gentleman and a Christian, but scarcely a saint. He was loath to leave life at a moment's notice, with all his misdeeds and mistakes unrepented of. But his feelings of chivalry were strong, and the sense of duty was imperious. He breathed from his heart the most earnest prayer for help and mercy he had ever in his life sent up to heaven, as he stepped in his turn over the cliff and followed in the track of Venables.

He made the leap over the breach comparatively easily. It tended only too decidedly down-hill, and his ponderous initial momentum aided him. The grave question was as to getting back; but that was a question to be solved in the future.

Seldom have severed friends been reunited under more serious circumstances; and the clasp of Venables's feverish hand repaid Leslie for the risk he had run. The presence and touch of his chivalrous friend were already restoring the courage of the other. There was this difference between