swung past Ram again and again, but dared
not leave go for fear of missing the rock with his feet.

At last he ventured: swung well past the prostrate figure, loosened his
grasp, alighted on the narrow ledge quite clear, but could not preserve
his balance, and fell back, uttering a low cry, as he tightened his
grasp upon the rope again, but not till he had slipped rapidly down a
good twenty feet, where he began swinging to and fro again.

For a few moments it seemed all over; there was the sea at a terrible
depth below him, and all that distance to climb up with his hands
bleeding and giving him intense pain, while his arms felt half jerked
out of their sockets.

But he had had plenty of experience in climbing ropes, and, muttering,
"Don't lose your nerve," he got the line well twisted round his legs,
and climbed up again sufficiently high to repeat his former experiment,
this time with success, and he stood upon the ledge and loosely knotted
the rope about his waist, to guard against letting the end go, before
kneeling down tremulously, and getting one hand well in under the collar
of the boy's rough coat.

For some minutes he felt giddy; there was a mist before his eyes, and he
involuntarily pressed himself close to the rock, expecting to fall, and
in a curious, dreamy way he saw himself hanging far below, swinging at
the end of the rope.

But all this passed off, and, exerting his strength as far as he could
in the terribly dangerous, crippled position in which he was, he gave
three or four sharp jerks, and succeeded in drawing Ram well on to the
shelf, when, in the revulsion of feeling, the dizziness came back, and
he felt that he must faint.

"Leave off, will yer?" came roughly to his ears, and roused him, telling
him that the boy was not dead. "D'yer hear, Jemmy Dadd? Great coward!
Father know'd you'd hit me like that, he'd half kill you."

There was a pause, and a sob of relief struggled from Archy's breast.

Then Ram began to mutter again.

"Oh, my head!" he groaned. "Oh, my head! Oh, my--"

He opened his eyes, and began to stare wildly; then he seemed to
recollect himself, and started up to gaze up, then over the side at the
sea far below, and lastly at his companion in misfortune.

"I reck'lect now," he said. "We was fighting, and I put my foot over
the side, and come down here, hitting my head on the stones, and then I
turned sick, and I knew I was falling over, and then I went to sleep. I