not telling him how much my foot hurt me.  In a minute I knew from Elzevir’s steps that he had left the turf and was upon the chalk.  Now I do not believe that there were half a dozen men beside in England who would have ventured up that path, even free and untrammelled, and not a man in all the world to do it with a full-grown lad in his arms.  Yet Elzevir made no bones of it, nor spoke a single word; only he went very slow, and I felt him scuffle with his foot as he set it forward, to make sure he was putting it down firm.

I said nothing, not wishing to distract him from his terrible task, and held my breath, when I could, so that I might lie quieter in his arms.  Thus he went on for a time that seemed without end, and yet was really but a minute or two; and by degrees I felt the wind, that we could scarce perceive at all on the under-cliff, blow fresher and cold on the cliff-side.  And then the path grew steeper and steeper, and Elzevir went slower and slower, till at last he spoke: 

’John, I am going to stop; but open not thy eyes till I have set thee down and bid thee.’

I did as bidden, and he lowered me gently, setting me on all-fours upon the path; and speaking again: 

’The path is too narrow here for me to carry thee, and thou must creep round this corner on thy hands and knees.  But have a care to keep thy outer hand near to the inner, and the balance of thy body to the cliff, for there is no room to dance hornpipes here.  And hold thy eyes fixed on the chalk-wall, looking neither down nor seaward.’

’Twas well he told me what to do, and well I did it; for when I opened my eyes, even without moving them from the cliff-side, I saw that the ledge was little more than a foot wide, and that ever so little a lean of the body would dash me on the rocks below.  So I crept on, but spent much time that was so precious in travelling those ten yards to take me round the first elbow of the path; for my foot was heavy and gave me fierce pain to drag, though I tried to mask it from Elzevir.  And he, forgetting what I suffered, cried out, ’Quicken thy pace, lad, if thou canst, the time is short.’  Now so frail is man’s temper, that though he was doing more than any ever did to save another’s life, and was all I had to trust to in the world; yet because he forgot my pain and bade me quicken, my choler rose, and I nearly gave him back an angry word, but thought better of it and kept it in.

Then he told me to stop, for that the way grew wider and he would pick me up again.  But here was another difficulty, for the path was still so narrow and the cliff-wall so close that he could not take me up in his arms.  So I lay flat on my face, and he stepped over me, setting his foot between my shoulders to do it; and then, while he knelt down upon the path, I climbed up from behind upon him, putting my arms round his neck; and so he bore me ‘pickaback’.  I shut my eyes firm again, and thus we moved along another spell, mounting still and feeling the wind still freshening.