When they had reached the end of the comb and the edge of cliff, they saw a little footpath slanting down the face of it; and below them, about half-way between the sea and the foot of the precipice, an amazing chaos of enormous boulders tumbled over and piled one above the other on a sort of grassy and undulating plain which extended as far as they could see to the southward, formed by an ancient landslip. On this long shelf of brushwood and grass, disrupted, as it seemed, by the shocks of a volcano, the fallen rocks seemed the wreck of a great ruined city which had once looked out on the ocean, sheltered by the long white wall of the overhanging cliff. "That is fine!" exclaimed Mme. Rosemilly, standing still. Jean had come up with her, and with a beating heart offered his hand to help her down the narrow steps cut in the rock. They went on in front, while Beausire, squaring himself on his little legs, gave his arm to Mme. Roland, who felt giddy at the gulf before her. The two young people who led the way, went fast till on a sudden they saw, by the side of a wooden bench which afforded a resting place about half-way down the slope, a thread of clear water, springing from a crevice in the cliff. It fell into a hollow as large as a washing basin which it had worn in the stone; then, falling in a cascade, hardly two feet high, it trickled across the footpath, which it had carpeted with cresses, and was lost among the briars and grass on the raised shelf where the boulders were piled. "Oh, I am so thirsty!" cried Mme. Rosemilly. But how could she drink? She tried to catch the water in her hand, but it slipped away between her fingers. Jean had an idea; he placed a stone on the path and on this she knelt down to put her lips to the spring itself, which was thus on the same level. When she raised her head, covered with myriads of tiny drops, sprinkled all over her face, her hair, her eyelashes, and her dress, Jean bent over her and murmured: "How pretty you look!" She answered in the tone in which she might have scolded a child: "Will you be quiet!" These were the first words of flirtation they had ever exchanged. "Come," said Jean, much agitated. "Let us go on before they come up with us." For in fact they could see quite near them now, Captain Beausire's back as he came down, stern foremost, so as to give both hands to Mme. Roland; and further up, further off, Roland still letting himself slip, lowering himself on his hams and clinging on with both his hand and elbows at the speed of a tortoise, Pierre keeping in front of him to watch his movements.