ed.

Knight strove with all his might for two or three minutes, and the drops
of perspiration began to bead his brow.

'No, I am unable to do it,' he answered.

Elfride, by a wrench of thought, forced away from her mind the sensation
that Knight was in bodily danger. But attempt to help him she must. She
ventured upon the treacherous incline, propped herself with the closed
telescope, and gave him her hand before he saw her movements.

'O Elfride! why did you?' said he. 'I am afraid you have only endangered
yourself.'

And as if to prove his statement, in making an endeavour by her
assistance they both slipped lower, and then he was again stayed. His
foot was propped by a bracket of quartz rock, balanced on the verge of
the precipice. Fixed by this, he steadied her, her head being about a
foot below the beginning of the slope. Elfride had dropped the glass; it
rolled to the edge and vanished over it into a nether sky.

'Hold tightly to me,' he said.

She flung her arms round his neck with such a firm grasp that whilst he
remained it was impossible for her to fall.

'Don't be flurried,' Knight continued. 'So long as we stay above this
block we are perfectly safe. Wait a moment whilst I consider what we had
better do.'

He turned his eyes to the dizzy depths beneath them, and surveyed the
position of affairs.

Two glances told him a tale with ghastly distinctness. It was that,
unless they performed their feat of getting up the slope with the
precision of machines, they were over the edge and whirling in mid-air.

For this purpose it was necessary that he should recover the breath and
strength which his previous efforts had cost him. So he still waited,
and looked in the face of the enemy.

The crest of this terrible natural facade passed among the neighbouring
inhabitants as being seven hundred feet above the water it overhung.
It had been proved by actual measurement to be not a foot less than six
hundred and fifty.

That is to say, it is nearly three times the height of Flamborough, half
as high again as the South Foreland, a hundred feet higher than
Beachy Head--the loftiest promontory on the east or south side of this
island--twice the height of St. Aldhelm's, thrice as high as the Lizard,
and just double the height of St. Bee's. One sea-bord point on the
western coast is known to surpass it in altitude, but only by a few
feet. This is Great Orme's Head, in Caernarvonshire.

And it must be remembered