Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/55

Rh of agony blinding his eyes. They looked up at the serene heavens and down at the sullen death that awaited them below—at the dark figures coming along the line—too far off to be any possible help.

"‘One more effort,’ the man said; ‘come, dear.’

"She closed her eyes and followed him. The rope swayed and creaked ominously beneath them. He gave another movement forward—and the wire broke. A moment of nothingness, and then they found themselves hanging in the air a few feet from the rushing waters. The man clung fast to the wire, but the woman’s hands only held a minute and then let go. They swung like a pendulum over the face of death. The man screamed in his agony. The rope noosed around his chest, and, laden with the unconscious woman’s weight, cut into him and seemed to pinch his heart out. He uttered cry after cry, and then—he went mad. He was no longer a reasoning human being, but an insane animal fighting for life. There was something—he did not know what—dragging him down to death; something that bit like a wolf into his breast and choked like a serpent. He strove to free himself. He tried to advance, but it drew