st manage somehow to grasp that tuft of ivy,
he tried again, with the dread of the consequences the less from the
experience he had gone through.

Coming to the conclusion that the only way was to raise himself upon his
toes at the last moment, and jerk himself forward, he drew in a deep
breath, reached out to the utmost, but raised his left hand more, then
loosened his grasp with his right, and when he thought the moment had
come, gave a slight bound.

That did it. He caught at the ivy, his fingers closed upon it tightly,
and he tried hard to keep his feet upon the ledge below water. But this
effort failed, his balance was gone, his feet glided from the ledge, and
he swung round, holding on to the ivy, which seemed to be giving way at
its roots.

But as Ralph fell, his hand slipped quite a foot down the ivy, and the
water took a good deal of his weight, so that, though the strain upon
the feeble growth was great, it remained firm enough to hold him; and he
hung half in, half out of the water for some time, afraid to stir, but
all the time energetically using his eyes, to seek for a way out of his
perilous position.

He was not long in coming to a decision. Above the ivy there was one of
the cracks, and he saw that if he could reach that, he could climb to
the one above, and from there gain the roots of a gnarled hawthorn,
whose seed had been dropped in a fissure by a bird generations back, the
dryness of the position and want of root-food keeping the tree stunted
and dwarfed. Once up there, another ten or twelve feet would take him
to the top of the lower wall, and then he felt that it would go hard if
he could not climb and hide, or escape up the cliff; so he set to at
once to try.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

RALPH GETS TIT FOR TAT.

Ralph Darley's first step was to get his right hand beside his left, and
his feet once more upon the ledge, but the ivy gave way a little more at
this movement, and he paused. But not for long. Another danger was at
hand.

Moved by the boldness of the lad's efforts to escape, and in dread lest
he might be successful, the leader of the four men, after a short
consultation with the others, who tried to dissuade him, began to wade
cautiously forward till the water grew too deep for him, and then
creeping sidewise, he climbed on to the smooth wall, and began to
imitate the course taken by Ralph; but before he had gone many yards,
one of his companions shouted:

"You'll go down, a