Part 53 (1/2)
”What's the matter?--Giddy?”
”No.”
”Come down, then.”
”I--can't,” said the boy slowly.
”Then climb on a little farther, and come down there.”
”No: I can't move.”
”Nonsense. This isn't a loadstone mountain, and you're not iron. Come down.”
”I--I did try,” said Saxe; ”but I had to make a jump to get here, and I can't jump back: there's nothing to take hold of.”
Dale scanned the position anxiously, seeing now for the first time that the rough angles and ridge-like pieces of rock along which the boy had made his way ceased about five feet from where he stood, and that he must have jumped on to a narrow piece of stone not a foot long and somewhere about a third of that width; and though, in the vast chasm in which they both were, the height above him, where Saxe was spread-eagled, as it were, against the perpendicular rock, looked perfectly insignificant, he was close upon a hundred feet up, and a fall would have been very serious, if not fatal.
”You foolish fellow!” Dale said cheerfully, so as not to alarm him at a time when he seemed to have quite lost his nerve: ”pretty mess to get yourself in! Fortunately I have the rope.”
As Dale spoke he looked about wildly for some means of utilising that rope; but he could see none.
”Why did you go up there instead of keeping down here?”
”I thought I saw an opening here,” said Saxe; ”and there is one big enough to creep in. I am holding by the side of it now, or I should go down.”
”Then go on holding by the side,” said Dale cheerily, though his face was working; and then, to take the boy's attention from his perilous position, ”Not a crystal cave, is it?”
”Yes. I felt big crystals inside: I am holding on by one.”
”Bravo! Well done, boy; but you are making yourself a front door.”
”Don't--don't laugh at me, Mr Dale,” said Saxe piteously. ”It is very hard work to hold on.”
”I'm not laughing at you, Saxe, my boy: only saying a word to cheer you up. You haven't got a creva.s.se under you, and if the worst came I should have to catch you. Now, let's see: here's a ledge away to your right; but it's too far for you to leap, and there is nothing to catch hold of. If I got the rope up to you, you could fasten it somewhere and slide down.”
”Fasten it? To what?”
”Ay?--to what?” said Dale to himself. Then aloud: ”You haven't a very good hold there, have you?”
”No--dreadful,” came faintly.
”I say, boy; don't take that tone. Mountaineers are people full of resources. You say you have an opening behind you?”
”Yes.”
”Then can you hold on with one hand?”
”I--I think so.”
”Think! Say yes!” shouted Dale angrily. ”Now, hold on with one hand.”