Of all this Martin was well aware, for he had been often at the place before, and knew every inch of the ground.  His chief difficulty would be to leap over the precipice in such a manner as to cause the Indian to believe he had fallen over accidentally.  If he could accomplish this, then he felt assured the savages would suppose he had been drowned, and so make no search for him at all.  Fortunately the ground favoured this.  About five feet below the edge of the precipice there was a projecting ledge of rock nearly four feet broad and covered with shrubs.  Upon this it was necessary to allow himself to fall.  The expedient was a desperate one, and he grew sick at heart as he glanced down the awful cliff, which seemed to him three times higher than it really was, as all heights do when seen from above.

Glancing round, he observed his savage guardian gazing contemplatively at the distant prospect.  Martin’s heart beat audibly as he rose and walked with an affectation of carelessness to the edge of the cliff.  As he gazed down, a feeling of horror seized him; he gasped for breath, and almost fainted.  Then the idea of perpetual slavery flashed across his mind, and the thought of freedom and home nerved him:  He clenched his hands, staggered convulsively forward and fell, with a loud and genuine shriek of terror, upon the shrubs that covered the rocky ledge.  Instantly he arose, ground his teeth together, raised his eyes for one moment to heaven, and sprang into the air.  For one instant he swept through empty space; the next he was deep down in the waters of the dark pool, and when the horrified Indian reached the edge of the precipice, he beheld his prisoner struggling on the surface for a moment, ere he was swept by the rapid stream round the point and out of view.

Bounding down the slope, the savage sped like a hunted antelope across the intervening space between the two cliffs, and quickly gained the brow of the lower precipice, which he reached just in time to see Martin Rattler’s straw hat dance for a moment on the troubled waters of the vortex and disappear in the awful abyss.  But Martin saw it, too, from the cleft in the frowning rock.

On reaching the surface after his leap he dashed the water from his eyes and looked with intense earnestness in the direction of the projecting rock towards which he was hurried.  Down he came upon it with such speed that he felt no power of man could resist.  But there was a small eddy just below it, into which he was whirled as he stretched forth his hands and clutched the rock with the energy of despair.  He was instantly torn away.  But another small point projected two feet below it.  This he seized.  The water swung his feet to and fro as it gushed into the vortex, but the eddy saved him.  In a moment his breast was on the rock, then his foot, and he sprang into the sheltering cleft just a moment before the Indian came in view of the scene of his supposed death.