So they formed a chain. Isabel, looking over, saw that the girl below had clasped Anne's wrist with her own fingers also--a strong grasp, a death-grasp. If she slipped farther, Anne must slip too. All this had not taken two minutes--scarcely a minute and a half. They were now all motionless; they could hear the footsteps of the men hurrying up the hill behind, coming nearer and nearer. But how slow they were! How long! The men were exactly three minutes, and it is safe to say that never in their lives had they rushed up a hill with such desperate haste and energy. But--women expect wings. Heathcote and Dexter reached the summit first. There they beheld five white-cheeked women, dressed in various dainty floating fabrics, and adorned with ferns and wild flowers, sitting on the ground, clasping each others' hands and arms. They formed a line, of which the woman at one end had her arm round a large tree, and the woman at the other round the body of a sixth, who was half over the cliff. A seventh and free person, Isabel, stood at the edge, her eyes fixed on the heavy form poised along the second verge below. No one spoke but Isabel. "She has caught on something, and Anne is holding her," she explained, in quick although low tones, as if afraid to disturb even the air. But while she was speaking the two men had gone swiftly to the edge, at a little distance below the group, and noted the position themselves. "Let me--" began Dexter. "No, you are too heavy," answered Heathcote. "_You_ must hold _me_." "Yes," said Isabel. "Quick! quick!" A woman in a hurry would say "Quick!" to the very lightning. But if men are slow, they are sure. Heathcote stretched himself down carefully on the other side of the little tree, but without touching it, that being Anne's chief support, and bearing his full weight upon Dexter, who in turn was held by the other men, who had now come up, he seized Valeria's arm firmly above Anne's hand, and told Anne to let go her hold. They were face to face; Anne's forehead was suffused with red, owing to her cramped position. "I can not; she has grasped my wrist," she answered. "Let go, Miss Morle," called Heathcote. "I have you firmly; do you not feel my hand?" But Valeria would not; perhaps could not. "Some of you take hold of Miss Douglas, then," called Heathcote to the men above. "The girl below will not loosen her hold, and you will have to draw us all up together." "Ready?" called the voices above, after an instant. "Ready," answered Heathcote. Then he felt himself drawn upward slowly, an inch, two inches; so did Anne. The two downward-stretched arms tightened; the one upward-lifted arm began to rise from the body to which it belonged. But what a weight for that one arm! Valeria was a large, heavy girl, with a ponderous weight of bone. In the position in which she lay, it seemed probable that her body might swing over the edge, and almost wrench the arm from its socket by its weight.