On perceiving that Valerie and he were moving, Anthony for a moment of time suspected an earthquake. Almost instantaneously he appreciated that, while it affected him pretty closely, it was a much smaller matter--nothing more, in fact, than the giving way of that portion of the cliff upon which the two were disposed. It was typical of the man that he neither swore nor cried out, and of the soldier that he thought and acted simultaneously.... By the mercy of Heaven, he was, as you know, upon one knee. Had he been sitting, like his companion, they must have gone with the avalanche. As it was, they were able, after a painful silence, to hear this crash evilly with a dull roar into the pinewood. The echoes rumbled curiously into the distance, and a startled medley of cries rose from all manner of birds, which soared out of their shelter, dismayed and whirling. One bird was fairly gibbering. Miss French and Lyveden both noticed it. Valerie found herself wondering whether it had lost its wits. For the perfection to which their senses focussed these and other very ordinary things, their plight was responsible. It has been said that the faculty of observation is never so pronounced as when the observer is face to face with Death. Anthony and the lady were looking him in the eyes. The pair of them was, in fact, hanging in space, dangling two hundred feet up, with an inch and a half of ash-plant between them and Eternity. With his right hand Lyveden was grasping the slender trunk of a sapling which grew three feet to an inch from the new edge of the bluff. As he was, arm and all, at full length, it follows that from the breast-bone downwards the whole of him was over the cliff. Valerie was altogether in mid-air. She was directly suspended, with her back flat against Anthony, by the latter's left arm, which if he had released she would have fallen plumb into the pinewood.... In a quiet voice Lyveden was speaking. "Try and free your right arm." Providentially, the girl's elbow was on a level with the edge, and at the expense of a torn sleeve she was able to work the arm free and on to the heather. This, when pulled, came away in her hand. Her fingers scratched upon the gravel frantically. No handfast was there. After a moment they abandoned the search. "Now the other arm." This was pinioned by her supporter's. By dint, however, of almost dislocating her shoulder, she managed to disengage it. Again she waited for instructions. None came, however, for Anthony could not think what to do. She could not turn, and he could not turn her. Neither could he haul them both up. He had not the strength. As it was, the strain upon his two arms was frightful--too frightful to last.... If she could have held herself for five seconds, he could have dragged himself up and the girl after him; but she could get no shadow of hold upon the ground. And all the time his arms were tiring--both of them--tiring rapidly....