mounted, and this helped me up a little way. Then I managed to creep a
trifle farther, hand over hand: whenever I could take breath I called
out to her that it was all right and I should be up in another minute.
The necessity of keeping up her courage endowed me with miraculous
strength, and in a little while I stood beside Helen on the narrow
shelf, and waited for a moment to breathe freely and see what was yet
beyond me. I smiled at her, and she looked steadily into my face, but
said not a word.

"How in the world did you get here, Helen?" I asked.

"I came after Beppo," she returned, her lip trembling.

"How did Beppo get here?"

"Georgy flung him down," cried the child, bursting into tears.
"Perhaps she did not mean to, but she was angry that he would not go
by himself after the stone she flung."

I had looked to the top by this time, and saw at once that the worst
part of the ascent was before me. It had been sheer rock beneath: here
the strata were crumbled, and the interstices filled with earth and
dried vegetation. The angle was much greater than it had been below,
and it was easy to see that even Helen's light footstep had loosened
every fragment it had touched. I gained a foothold above her;
stretched out my hand and drew her up; then another and another. Once
she lost her footing, but I caught the slim figure in my arms and went
on, with her half fainting against my shoulder, her puny strength
quite worn out.

When we were within a few feet of the top I told her to look up. "You
see that we are almost there," I said gently. "Can you do what I tell
you to do? When I raise you place one foot on my shoulder: ... now,
then, take hold of something firmly and clamber up."

My footing was precarious, and in order to lift her up I was obliged
to unfasten my hold of the few scant wisps of withered grass. If she
could but reach the top, I believed I could make a supreme effort to
save myself; and I risked everything.

In an instant she was on the brow of the cliff. She gave a convulsive
cry of joy and relief, and reached out her little hand to me. I almost
stretched out to grasp it; then, remembering that with her slight
weight I might easily drag her back into danger, I took hold of a
little bush: it was dried to the roots, and came out in my hand. My
footing gave way: I slipped down, with nothing to break my fall--not a
shrub, not a fissure in the rocks. The blue sky had been above me, but
that blessed gl