The cliff-wall ended, and ran back in a black and barren hill, immense and desolate in the daylight. The forest ended abruptly on the edge of a chasm so deep that, though it must have been nearly a quarter of a mile to the further side, the great depth made it look narrow. Far below, dim and snake-like in the distance, a great river wound, between deep shelving banks that looked moss-grown, but were covered with (perhaps familiar) trees. I stood upon the edge, which sank like a wall, and I saw no possible way to go forward, or to clamber down. I knew that there was a way which I had been meant to take, and more than once I walked from side to side of the path on which I stood, bending perilously over an edge which fell almost sheer to not less than five-thousand feet below. As I did this, the rope-like tentacle, which I was carrying over my shoulder, slipped forward. I made one effort to clutch it; then, conscious of my peril, let it go, but I was overbalanced already. With an involuntary cry, that echoed and re-echoed through the barren heights, I fell forward. CHAPTER VI THE FROG-MOUTHS Was the abyss an illusion only? Dizzy and blank of mind, with a heart that beat to choking, and with a bruised and injured knee, I lay upon a level vacancy, and the cause of the accident lay, as on nothing, beside me. How long I lay there I have no conception. I believe that as my heart-beats slowed, and my senses cleared, I fainted from a revulsion of terror, and, reviving, I lay afraid to move, and gazing with half-delirious eyes into the appalling depth beneath me. But memory is indistinct, and it is a terror which I recall with reluctance. Soon or late, at last I realised that the path, though invisible to me, must run out across the gorge, and timidly, and then more boldly I felt to right and left, and wriggled back, and stood once more upon the evident platform. I remained there for a long time, seeking courage to go forward. With a knowledge of what to look for, I fancied that the sunshine caught a faint gleam of opal light that crossed the chasm. How should I venture to tread it? How could so frail a bridge extend so far without support or suspension? Would it sway beneath me as I advanced? Would it break at last, and drop me, a dead thing, before I reached the silver streak below? In vain I tried to stimulate myself to the adventure. What hope was there if I did not cross it? Was I not pledged in honour to the attempt, and might not the path of honour be the path of safety also? Here, without apparent reason, an old line of forgotten verse intruded,-- “‘Be bold,’ ‘be bold’ and everywhere ‘be bold.’”