he rock a thing happened
which was so curious and suggestive in itself, though doubtless a mere
coincidence, that, if anything, it added to, rather than deducted from,
the burden on our nerves.

It will be remembered that when Ayesha was standing on the spur, before
we crossed to the stone, the wind tore her cloak from her, and whirled
it away into the darkness of the gulf, we could not see whither. Well--I
hardly like to tell the story; it is so strange. As we lay there upon
the rocking-stone, this very cloak came floating out of the black space,
like a memory from the dead, and fell on Leo--so that it covered him
nearly from head to foot. We could not at first make out what it was,
but soon discovered by its feel, and then poor Leo, for the first time,
gave way, and I heard him sobbing there upon the stone. No doubt the
cloak had been caught upon some pinnacle of the cliff, and was thence
blown hither by a chance gust; but still, it was a most curious and
touching incident.

Shortly after this, suddenly, without the slightest previous warning,
the great red knife of light came stabbing the darkness through and
through--struck the swaying stone on which we were, and rested its sharp
point upon the spur opposite.

"Now for it," said Leo, "now or never."

We rose and stretched ourselves, and looked at the cloud-wreaths stained
the colour of blood by that red ray as they tore through the sickening
depths beneath, and then at the empty space between the swaying stone
and the quivering rock, and, in our hearts, despaired, and prepared for
death. Surely we could not clear it--desperate though we were.

"Who is to go first?" said I.

"Do you, old fellow," answered Leo. "I will sit upon the other side of
the stone to steady it. You must take as much run as you can, and jump
high; and God have mercy on us, say I."

I acquiesced with a nod, and then I did a thing I had never done since
Leo was a little boy. I turned and put my arm round him, and kissed him
on the forehead. It sounds rather French, but as a fact I was taking my
last farewell of a man whom I could not have loved more if he had been
my own son twice over.

"Good-bye, my boy," I said, "I hope that we shall meet again, wherever
it is that we go to."

The fact was I did not expect to live another two minutes.

Next I retreated to the far side of the rock, and waited till one of the
chopping gusts of wind got behind me, and then I ran the length of the
hug