been hit with irons, while my leather clothes were torn to rags.
But, by-and-by, it came to me that I could get up if I chose, and when
I looked below me and saw the sheer precipice, and that nothing but a
bush stood between me and it, you may be sure I scrambled back to the
road quicker than a man counts two. And there I lay, trying to
remember what had happened, and what my duty called upon me to do.

Ferdy and the car! Good God, what had happened to them? The sweat
poured off me like rain when the truth came back. Ferdy was over
there, down that awful precipice. Quaking in every limb, I dragged
myself to the edge and looked over. Yes, I could see the car, looking
like a little toy thing, far down in the valley. It lay wheels
upwards, in what appeared to be a little brook or river; but of my
comrade not a sign anywhere. In vain I shouted his name again and
again. The cars began to pass me, and, warned by my presence, they
took that awful corner safely; but not a man of their drivers guessed
that a good fellow had gone over, and that I was half mad because of
it. Away they went, with a nod and a shout, leaving that cold silence
of the mountains behind them, and Lal Britten crying like a woman
because they didn't stay. In the end I ceased to think of them at all,
and, going to the brink again, I shouted "Ferdinand" until the hills
rang.

* * * * *

He answered me--as I am a living man--Ferdinand answered me at last.
At first I could believe so little in the truth of what I heard that I
almost thought the mountains were mocking me and sending my voice back
in echoes. Then I understood that it was not so at all, but that my
friend really called to me from a place thirty or forty yards down the
road, where the scrub was thicker. It was the spot where our tank and
tool-box, cast ahead as the car swerved and went over, lay shattered on
the rocks. These I hardly noticed at the moment; but, dashing to the
place, I threw myself flat on my face and hung right over the precipice
to answer my comrade. And then, in an instant I knew what had
happened--then I understood.

The car, I say, had swerved away to the right as she took the
precipice. The tremendous force of it not only sent all our loose
impedimenta flying down the road, which turned to the left, but it
threw Ferdinand sideways; and, although he had gone over, he fell, as
the newspapers have told you, just where the sheer wall