There was no answer. In the dead stillness I could hear the rafters falling in the House of Gleys, and the shouts of the men at work. The _Godsend_ lay around the point, out of sight. And Billy, deaf as a stone, sat no doubt by his rope, placidly waiting my signal. I scream’d again and again. The rock flung my voice seaward. Across the summit vaulted above, there drifted a puff of brown smoke. No one heard. A while of weakness followed. My brain reel’d: my fingers dug into the rock behind till they bled. I bent forward—forward over the heaving mist through which the sea crawl’d like a snake. It beckon’d me down, that crawling water.... I stiffened my knees and the faintness pass’d. I must not look down again. It flashed on me that Delia had call’d me weak: and I hardened my heart to fight it out. I would face round to the cliff and work toward the rope. ’Twas a hateful moment while I turned: for to do so I must let go with one hand. And the rock thrust me outward. But at last I faced the cliff; waited a moment while my knees shook; and moving a foot cautiously to the left, began to work my way along, an inch at a time. Looking down to guide my feet, I saw the waves twinkling beneath my heels. My palms press’d the rock. At every three inches I was fain to rest my forehead against it and gasp. Minute after minute went by—endless, intolerable, and still the rope seem’d as far away as ever. A cold sweat ran off me: a nausea possessed me. Once, where the ledge was widest, I sank on one knee, and hung for a while incapable of movement. But a black horror drove me on: and after the first dizzy stupor my wits were mercifully wide awake. Sure, ’twas God’s miracle preserv’d them to me, who looking at the sea and cliff and pitiless sun, had almost denied Him and his miracles together. All the way I kept shouting: and so, for half an hour, inch by inch, shuffled forward, until I stood under the rope. Then I had to turn again. The rock, tho’ still overarching, here press’d out less than before: so that, working round on the ball of my foot, I managed pretty easily. But how to get the rope? As I said, it hung a good yard beyond the ledge, the noose dangling some two feet below it. With my finger tips against the cliff, I lean’d out and clutch’d at it. I miss’d it by a foot. “Shall I jump?” thought I, “or bide here till help comes?” ’Twas a giddy, awful leap. But the black horror was at my heels now. In a minute more ’twould have me; and then my fall was certain. I call’d up Delia’s face as she had taunted me. I bent my knees, and, leaving my hold of the rock, sprang forward—out, over the sea. I saw it twinkle, fathoms below. My right hand touch’d—grasp’d the rope: then my left, as I swung far out upon it. I slipp’d an inch—three inches—then held, swaying wildly. My foot was in the noose. I heard a shout above: and, as I dropp’d to a sitting posture, the rope began to rise. “Quick! Oh, Billy, pull quick!”