ease.

As a preliminary he stepped back, and, gazing upwards, went over the
climb in his mind, carefully noting every step, every handhold. The
cliff was terrace here, and the nearest resting-place, whence, indeed,
the rope hung, he estimated to be about sixty feet. Without this aid,
however, it might as well have been sixty hundred.

Seizing the rope he began his ascent, the mace and the remainder of his
bone daggers still slung around him. The task was more difficult than it
looked. Contact, often sudden and violent, with the rock face bruised
his knuckles, inflicting excruciating pain, once indeed so as to turn
him sick and faint. But a glance down into the grisly hollow, as he hung
thus suspended by a thread--the glint of the white skeletons in the
moonlight, and, above all, the vague, shadowy outline, black and
frightful, of the horror, which still lingered outside its den, as
though meditating return--nerved him once more. What if he were to fall,
maimed, battered, helpless--would not the frightful thing hold him
entirely at its mercy, and return and drain his life-blood at its
pleasure? Summoning all his will-power, all his strength, he resumed his
climb, and soon a firm, resolute hand, grasping his, drew him up for the
time being into safety; for they were on a ledge.

"Rest now, beloved," said the chief's daughter softly, as she turned to
draw up the rope. "I have saved thee so far."

"But--to what end, Lindela? Did you not fling a stick at me, and strike
me hard? See, I am bruised with it yet. It has even hindered my climbing
powers. That is a strange way of showing love."

"But is this a stranger way?" said the girl sadly, displaying the rope
she had just drawn up. "See now. They suspected me, as it was. Had I not
shown myself the first and the fiercest to turn against you, should I
have been here now? But come, we are not yet in safety. When we are it
will be time enough for talk, and for--love."

She led the way to a steep, narrow cranny. Up this they climbed some
fifty feet without difficulty, emerging upon another terrace. Here
another rope hung from the cliff above, about the same height.

"Go first, Nyonyoba, while I hold the rope to steady it," said the girl.
"Then, too, if your strength should give way, perhaps I may catch you
and break your fall. I am as strong as any of the women of the
Ba-gcatya--and that is saying much."

For answer, Laurence uttered a derisive laugh. But there must have