e, leaped over the farther
branch of the stream, and landed safe.

I was now alone upon the rock, which gave me the more room; the brandy
was singing in my ears; I had this good example fresh before me, and
just wit enough to see that if I did not leap at once, I should never
leap at all. I bent low on my knees and flung myself forth, with that
kind of anger of despair that has sometimes stood me in stead of
courage. Sure enough, it was but my hands that reached the full length;
these slipped, caught again, slipped again; and I was sliddering back
into the lynn, when Alan seized me, first by the hair, then by the
collar, and with a great strain dragged me into safety.

Never a word he said, but set off running again for his life, and I must
stagger to my feet and run after him. I had been weary before, but now I
was sick and bruised, and partly drunken with the brandy; I kept
stumbling as I ran, I had a stitch that came near to overmaster me; and
when at last Alan paused under a great rock that stood there among a
number of others, it was none too soon for David Balfour.

A great rock, I have said; but by rights it was two rocks leaning
together at the top, both some twenty feet high, and at the first sight
inaccessible. Even Alan (though you may say he had as good as four
hands) failed twice in an attempt to climb them; and it was only at the
third trial, and then by standing on my shoulders and leaping up with
such force as I thought must have broken my collar-bone, that he secured
a lodgment. Once there, he let down his leathern girdle; and with the
aid of that and a pair of shallow footholds in the rock, I scrambled up
beside him.

Then I saw why we had come there; for the two rocks, being both somewhat
hollow on the top, and sloping one to the other, made a kind of dish or
saucer, where as many as three or four men might have lain hidden.

All this while Alan had not said a word, and had run and climbed with
such a savage, silent frenzy of hurry, that I knew that he was in mortal
fear of some miscarriage. Even now we were on the rock he said nothing,
nor so much as relaxed the frowning look upon his face; but clapped flat
down, and, keeping only one eye above the edge of our place of shelter,
scouted all round the compass. The dawn had come quite clear; we could
see the stony sides of the valley, and its bottom, which was bestrewed
with rocks, and the river, which went from one side to another, and
made white