But Torrence climbed slowly and steadily, and I kept my grip beneath him, not daring to look below, or speak a word. I was overpowered with the agonizing fear that each step might be his last, or, that reaching a spot where, unable to proceed for want of a foothold, he would be compelled to retreat. And all this time the crowd was gaining on us at a sickening rate. I could now hear the individual voices of those clambering up behind. How near they were I could not think. We dared not touch the shrubs that grew in the crannies about us, for the soil was mellow and they broke away in our hands. There was nothing to do but cling to the rock with tooth and nail, and trust to luck. Suddenly the jangle of bells rang out on the air; why had we not heard them before? Surely it was an ominous sound—possibly the token of victory. But Torrence stuck to the wall and I was close behind him. The vanguard of the crowd had already commenced climbing the cliff below us, and I could almost feel their breath upon my neck. "Be quick!" I called to Torrence, speaking for the first time. But he turned upon me a face pale with horror and said: "I can go no further!" It was what I was dreading. The cliff above was smooth and slaty, offering not the slightest projection for a foothold. And there we hung in mid-air, listening to the rabble pouring on behind. Death seemed inevitable, for we had nearly reached the top, and could not have survived a fall to the jagged rocks below, to say nothing of dropping into the teeth of the enemy. How long we hung thus it is impossible to say, but it seemed like an eternity, and I remember looking at Torrence’s boots tucked in each side of his belt and observing that the one upon the right was not as well secured as the other, and wondering if he would lose it. Then an angel’s hand seemed suddenly let down from heaven, as I saw for the first time the limb of a tree, which hung over the cliff in line with my brother’s head. He had not seen it, so intently were his eyes fixed upon the rock, but I now called out loudly for him to grasp it. Even this was no easy task, the bough being several feet above his head, and it required all the nerve he possessed to jump into the air from his precarious foothold and seize it. I trembled, and every nerve in my body quivered as he leaped upward. I sickened, and felt the earth give way beneath me, but at the same instant I saw that he had caught the limb with one hand and was swinging clear of the rock. Would he be able to draw himself up? Yes, there he was struggling along the bough with both legs and arms, and in another instant the top was reached. It was now an easy matter to bend the limb down for me. But the men were close upon us.