And now the girl was striking away these steps. What was her purpose? Had she considered what she was doing? To destroy the means of ascent was easy enough; to replace it a labour exacting time and patience. Was she a fool? was she mad? There was some method in her madness, for she had not knocked away a succession of steps, but two only, with one left in position between. "'Ware, fool!" And down the face of the rock and clattering to his feet fell a third. This was too much. Jean ran to the foot of the stair and hastened up it till he reached the gap. Further he could not proceed--a step had been dislodged; the next remained intact. Then came another break, a second step in place, and then the third break. Above that stood the girl, swinging the long-handled mallet with which she had loosened the wedges and struck down the steps they held up. She was a handsome girl with dusky skin, but warm with blood under it, dark loose hair, and large deep brown eyes. She stood, athletic, graceful, poised on her stage, swaying the hammer, looking defiantly, insolently, at the youth, with lips half open and pouting. "Do you know what you are about, madcap?" said he. "Perfectly. Making you keep your distance, fool." "Keep distance!" said the youth. "I had no thought of you. I was not pursuing you--I did not know you were here!" "And now I have woke you to see me." "What of that? You had acted like a mad thing. I cannot help you, I cannot leap to you. Nothing would make me do so." "Nothing? Not if I said, 'Come, assist me down'?" "I could not leap the space. See you--if one step only were thrown down I might venture, but not when every alternate one between us is missing. To leap up were to ensure my fall at the next gap." "I do not need your help. I can descend. I can spring from one step to the next over the gaps." "And risk a fall and a broken neck?" "Then there is one madcap the less in this world." "For what have you done this?" "A prank." "A prank! Yes; but to replace the steps takes time and pains." "I shall expend neither on them." "It will give trouble to others." "If it amuses me, what care I?" The young man looked at the strange girl with perplexity. "If every peg of wood were away," said she, "I could yet descend." "How? Are you a bird--can you fly? Not a cat, not a squirrel could run up or down this rock." "Fool! I should slip down by the rope. Do you not know that there is a windlass? Do you suppose they take their kegs of wine, their meat, their bread, their fuel up this spider stair? I tell you that there is a rope, and at the end of it a bar of wood. They let this down and bring up what they want affixed to the bar. At pleasure, any man may go up or down that way. Do you not see? It must be so. If they were fast and all the ladders were gone, how should they ever descend? Why, they could not mend the stairs from aloft. It must be done step by step from below. Do you see that, fool?" "I see that perfectly."