Yet I could not, but answered:  ’I cannot, I cannot; if I open my eyes, or move hand or foot, I shall fall on the rocks below.’

He waited a second, and then said:  ’Nay, move thou must, and ’tis better to risk falling now, than fall for certain with another bullet in thee later on.’  And with that he shifted his hand from my back and fixed it in my coat-collar, moving backwards himself, and setting to drag me after him.

Now, I was so besotted with fright that I would not budge an inch, fearing to fall over if I opened my eyes.  And Elzevir, for all he was so strong, could not pull a helpless lump backwards up that path.  So he gave it up, leaving go hold on me with a groan, and at that moment there rose from the under-cliff, below a sound of voices and shouting.

‘Zounds, they are down already!’ cried Elzevir, ’and have found Maskew’s body; it is all up; another minute and they will see us.’

But so strange is the force of mind on body, and the power of a greater to master a lesser fear, that when I heard those voices from below, all fright of falling left me in a moment, and I could open my eyes without a trace of giddiness.  So I began to move forward again on hands and knees.  And Elzevir, seeing me, thought for a moment I had gone mad, and was dragging myself over the cliff; but then saw how it was, and moved backwards himself before me, saying in a low voice, ’Brave lad!  Once creep round this turn, and I will pick thee up again.  There is but fifty yards to go, and we shall foil these devils yet!’

Then we heard the voices again, but farther off, and not so loud; and knew that our pursuers had left the under-cliff and turned down on to the beach, thinking that we were hiding by the sea.

Five minutes later Elzevir stepped on to the cliff-top, with me upon his back.

‘We have made something of this throw,’ he said, ’and are safe for another hour, though I thought thy giddy head had ruined us.’

Then he put me gently upon the springy turf, and lay down himself upon his back, stretching his arms out straight on either side, and breathing hard to recover from the task he had performed.

* * * * *

The day was still young, and far below us was stretched the moving floor of the Channel, with a silver-grey film of night-mists not yet lifted in the offing.  A hummocky up-and-down line of cliffs, all projections, dents, bays, and hollows, trended southward till it ended in the great bluff of St. Alban’s Head, ten miles away.  The cliff-face was gleaming white, the sea tawny inshore, but purest blue outside, with the straight sunpath across it, spangled and gleaming like a mackerel’s back.