"Too short, too short, Ram!" "Ay, so it be. Good ten foot." "Could I help him if you lowered me down?" "Lower you down? Are you mad? I couldn't hold you; and you'd break your neck." Mark heard every word now, for his senses had suddenly recovered their tone and something more. Then what seemed to be another long space of time elapsed, and Ralph shouted to him,-- "This rope is too short, but there'll be another here soon." Mark could make no reply, and he hung there, listening to the murmur of voices once more. Then the rush of the river sounded like the distant boom of thunder. There was a loud _cizz_, _cizz_, going on somewhere on the cliff face from a cricket, and the birds were singing more loudly than he ever remembered to have heard them before. Once more his senses must have left him and come back, for he heard the voice above louder than ever, followed by Ralph shouting,-- "Can you tie the rope round you?" Mark could not answer for some little time; then his lips parted, and he gasped out the one word,-- "No." A sharp rustling followed, as of a rope being rapidly drawn up. Then it was lowered again; and as Mark strained his eyes round into the left corners to get a glimpse, he saw a loop swinging to and fro, and it struck him again and again; but those who lowered it, in the hope of noosing the lad and drawing him up, soon found that the bush and the sufferer's position precluded this. "Can you push your arms through the loop, and hang on?" cried Ralph now. "No," was the discouraging reply, for Mark fully realised the fact that if he loosened his desperate hold for a moment he must fall. "Haul up!" shouted Ralph. "Quick!" The rope rattled and scraped again; and then, as Mark hung there, half-insensible, he heard what sounded like quarrelling. "You shan't go, Master Ralph. Who's to meet Sir Morton if you get a fall trying to save a thing like that?" Even in his half-insensible state Mark felt a quiver run through him; and then he lay listening again, as if to hear what was taking place about some one else. "Silence!" came to his ear. "How dare you, sir! Now, all of you lower me down." There was a rustling and scraping directly after, which seemed to last a long time, before something brushed against the listener, and he quivered, for he felt that he was going. Then there was a panting noise, which came up, as it were, out of the darkness, and he was clutched tightly, hot breath came upon his cheek, and a hoarse voice yelled in his ear,-- "Got him! Haul up steadily!" and directly after, the voice became a whisper, which said,-- "Pray God the rope may not break." Mark was conscious now of being scraped against the rock, and brushed by twigs, for what seemed to be a very long time, before he was roughly seized by more hands, and dragged heavily over the cliff edge, to be dropped upon the short grass, as a voice he had heard before cried harshly,--