there was any hurt to his daughter I could only gasp and point
downward. My mouth was dry and parched, and I did not know how to
put into words the thing that had happened; but he saw that
Elfrida's horse was not there, and that Erpwald's ran loose with
mine, and he guessed.

"Over the cliff?" he said, whispering, and I nodded.

"Go and look," he gasped, and he knelt down and took Elfrida from
me.

The two who were with him were trying to catch the loose horses,
and we were alone for the moment. So I crept to the edge and looked
over, fearing what I should see. But I saw nothing but the bare
track winding there, and I remembered that the cliff overhung.

Then, as I scanned every rock and cranny below me a man came out
from under the overhang at the foot of the cliff and looked up. For
a moment my heart leapt, for I thought it was Erpwald. But it was
only the traveller we had seen, and he must have been looking at
what had rolled into the hollow that hid it from me. He glanced up
and caught sight of me.

"How did it happen?" he called up to me.

"Dead?" I called back, with a terror of what I knew would be his
answer.

Then he laughed at me.

"Do you expect a horse to be leather all through, Master? Of course
he is.--Saddle and all smashed to bits."

Then a dull anger took me that he thought of the horse only, as it
seemed, unless he was mazed as I was with it all.

"The man--the man," I said.

"There is no man here, Master. Did one fall?" he said in a new
voice, and he crossed to the other side of the gorge and scanned
the face of the cliff.

"He is not to be seen," he said. "Maybe he has caught yonder."

He pointed to a ledge that was plain enough to me, but nowhere near
the place whence the fall was. There were no ledges to be seen as I
looked straight down, and I knew that this place was the most sheer
fall along all the length of the gorge.

Now three more of our party came up, and at once they rode down to
the village and so round to where the man stood. It seemed a long
time before they were there and talking to him.

"Ho, Oswald!"

Their voices came cheerfully enough, and I looked down at them.

"There seem to be clefts here and there, and in one of those he
must needs be," they said. "We are going to the village to get a
cragsman with a rope, and will be with you anon."

There was at least hope in that, and I watched them ride swiftly
away. The ravens were gathering fast now, knowing th