Page:In the Roar of the Sea.djvu/115

Rh and she set hers therein, and sought the next. Thus, creeping and groping, she neared the edge.

And now came the moment of supreme peril, when, trusting that she had found the right path, she must go over the brink. If she were mistaken, the next step would send her down two hundred feet, to where she heard the roar, and felt the breath of the sea stream up to her from the abyss. Here she could distinguish nothing; she must trust to Providence to guide her steps. She uttered a short and earnest prayer, and then boldly descended. She could not stoop now. To stoop was to dive headlong down. She felt her way, however, with her feet, reached one firm station, then another. Her hands touched the grass and earth of the ragged margin, then with another step she was below it, and held to the rain-splashed fangs of rock.

Clinging, with her face inward, feeling with her feet, and never sure but that the next moment might see her launched into air, she stole onward, slowly, cautiously, and ever with the gnawing dread in her heart lest she should be too late. One intense point of consciousness stood out in her brain—it told her that if, while thus creeping down, there should come the flash and explosion of fire-arms, her courage would fail, her head would spin, and she would be lost.

How long she was descending she could not tell, how many steps she took was unknown to her she had not counted—but it seemed to her an entire night that passed, with every change of position an hour was marked; then, at last, she was conscious that she stood on more level ground. She had reached the terrace.

A little further, and on her left hand, would open the mouth of the shaft, and she must descend that, in profoundest darkness. A cry! A light flashed into her eyes and dazzled her. A hand at the same moment clutched her, or she would have reeled back and gone over the cliff.

The light was held to pour over her face. Who held it and who grasped her she could not see; but she knew the moment she heard a voice exclaim——

"Judith!"

In her terror and exhaustion she could but gasp for breath for a few moments.

By degrees her firmness and resolution returned, and