At length he said that we were come to the last turn of the path, and he must set me down once more.  So down upon his knees and hands he went, and I slid off behind, on to the ledge.  Both were on all-fours now; Elzevir first and I following.  But as I crept along, I relaxed care for a moment, and my eyes wandered from the cliff-side and looked down.  And far below I saw the blue sea twinkling like a dazzling mirror, and the gulls wheeling about the sheer chalk wall, and then I thought of that bloated carcass of a sheep that had fallen from this very spot perhaps, and in an instant felt a sickening qualm and swimming of the brain, and knew that I was giddy and must fall.

Then I called out to Elzevir, and he, guessing what had come over me, cries to turn upon my side, and press my belly to the cliff.  And how he did it in such a narrow strait I know not; but he turned round, and lying down himself, thrust his hand firmly in my back, pressing me closer to the cliff.  Yet it was none too soon, for if he had not held me tight, I should have flung myself down in sheer despair to get quit of that dreadful sickness.

‘Keep thine eyes shut, John,’ he said, ’and count up numbers loud to me, that I may know thou art not turning faint.’  So I gave out, ’One, two, three,’ and while I went on counting, heard him repeating to himself, though his words seemed thin and far off:  ’We must have taken ten minutes to get here, and in five more they will be on the under-cliff; and if we ever reach the top, who knows but they have left a guard!  No, no, they will not leave a guard, for not a man knows of the Zigzag; and, if they knew, they would not guess that we should try it.  We have but fifty yards to go to win, and now this cursed giddy fit has come upon the child, and he will fall and drag me with him; or they will see us from below, and pick us off like sitting guillemots against the cliff-face.’

So he talked to himself, and all the while I would have given a world to pluck up heart and creep on farther; yet could not, for the deadly sweating fear that had hold of me.  Thus I lay with my face to the cliff, and Elzevir pushing firmly in my back; and the thing that frightened me most was that there was nothing at all for the hand to take hold of, for had there been a piece of string, or even a thread of cotton, stretched along to give a semblance of support, I think I could have done it; but there was only the cliff-wall, sheer and white, against that narrowest way, with never cranny to put a finger into.  The wind was blowing in fresh puffs, and though I did not open my eyes, I knew that it was moving the little tufts of bent grass, and the chiding cries of the gulls seemed to invite me to be done with fear and pain and broken leg, and fling myself off on to the rocks below.

Then Elzevir spoke.  ‘John’ he said, ’there is no time to play the woman; another minute of this and we are lost.  Pluck up thy courage, keep thy eyes to the cliff, and forward.’