Here and there on the face of the cliff some yew trees had managed to find a holding, and their boughs were broken by the passage of the horse at least through them.  But there were no shreds of clothing on them, as if Erpwald had reached them.  That might be because the weightier horse fell first.  It seemed to me in that moment of the fall that he was between the horse and the cliff as he went over the edge, for the forefeet of the horse struck his legs and threw him backward, and the last thing that I minded was seeing his head against the horse’s mane in some way.  That last glimpse will bide with me until I forget all things.

It seemed very long before our friends came back with the ropes.  Backwards and forwards in front of us flew untiringly two ravens, now flying across the gorge, and then again almost brushing us with their wings as they swept up the face of the cliff from below.  We thought they had a nest somewhere close at hand, for it was their time.

“If Erpwald were dead,” I said presently, “those birds would not be so restless.  It is hard to think that they know where he is and how he fares; but at least they tell us that he is not yet prey for them.”

Backward and forward they swept, until my eyes grew dazed with watching them, and then suddenly they both croaked their alarm note, wheeled quickly away from the cliff’s face, and fled across the gorge and were gone.

Then was a rattle of stones, and a shout from some one in the track below, and I started and saw a head slowly rising above the edge of the cliff as if its owner had climbed up to us.  White and streaked with blood was the face, but it was not crushed or marred, and it was Erpwald’s.

“Lend me a hand,” he said, as we stared at him, as one needs must stare at one who comes back as it were from the grave.  “My head swims even yet.”

I grasped his hand and helped him to the grass, and once there he stood upright and shook himself, looking round in an astonished way as he did so.

“No broken bones,” he said.  “Where is Elfrida?  Is she all right?  I was rough with her, I fear, but I could not help it.  Could I have managed otherwise?”

“In no way better,” I said, finding my tongue at length.  “She has gone to the village.  But where have you been!”

“In a long hole just over here,” he answered.  “But how long has she been gone?”

“How long do you think that you have been in your hole?”

“A few minutes.  It cannot be long.  Yet it must have been longer than I thought, for the shadows are changed.”

It was a full hour and a half since he fell, but I did not say so, lest it should be some sort of shock to him.  So I bade him sit down while I saw to a cut there was on his head—­the only sign of hurt that he had.

“I thought that I was done for at first,” he said.

“So thought I, until we found that you were not at the bottom.  Even now some of us have gone for ropes that we might search the cliff for you.  We could not see you anywhere, and there does not seem to be any ledge here that could catch you.”