The Obstacle Race Part 3

She awoke to the fact that she was propped against his knee. She sat up, still gasping a little, but shrank as she realized the narrowness of the ledge upon which she was resting.

He thrust out a protecting arm in front of her. "It's all right. You're absolutely safe. Don't s.h.i.+ver like that! You couldn't go over if you tried. Don't look if it makes you giddy!"

She looked again into his face, and again was struck by the amazing keenness of his eyes.

"How did you get here?" she said.

"Oh, it's easy enough when you know the way. I was just coming to help you when you came over. You didn't hear me shout?"

"No. They were all making such a horrid noise." She suppressed a shudder.

"Have they gone now?"

"Yes, the brutes! They scooted. I'm going after them directly."

"Oh, please don't!" she said hastily. "Not for the world! I don't want to be left alone here. I've had enough of it."

She tried to smile with the words, but it was rather a trembling attempt.

He abandoned his intention at once.

"All right. It'll keep. Look here, shall I help you up? You'll feel better on the top."

"I think I had better stay here for a minute," Juliet said. "I--I'm afraid I shall make an idiot of myself if I don't."

"No, you won't. You'll be all right." He thrust an abrupt arm around her shoulders, gripping them hard to still her trembling. "Lean against me!

I've got you quite safe."

She relaxed with a murmur of thanks. There was something intensely rea.s.suring about that firm grip. She sat quite motionless for a s.p.a.ce with closed eyes, gradually regaining her self-command.

In the end a snuffle and whine from above aroused her. She sat up with a start.

"Oh, Columbus! Don't let him fall over!"

Her companion laughed a little. "Let's get back to him then! Don't look down! Keep your face to the cliff! And remember I've got hold of you! You can't fall."

She struggled blindly to her feet, helped by his arm behind her; but, though she did not look down, she was seized immediately by an overwhelming giddiness that made her totter back against him.

"I'm dreadfully sorry," she said, almost in tears. "I can't help it. I'm an idiot."

He held her up with unfailing steadiness. "All right! All right!" he said. "Don't get frightened! Move along slowly with me! Keep your face to the cliff, and you'll come to some steps! That's the way! Yes, we've got to get round that jutting-out bit. It's perfectly safe. Keep your head!

It's quite easy on the other side."

It might be perfectly safe for a practised climber, but Juliet's heart was in her mouth when she reached the projecting corner of cliff where the ledge narrowed to a bare eighteen inches and the rock bulged outwards as if to push off all trespa.s.sers.

She came to a standstill, clinging desperately to the unyielding stone.

"I can't possibly do it," she said helplessly.

"Yes, you can. You've got to." Quick as lightning came the words. "Go on and don't be silly! Of course you can do it! A child could."

He loosened her clutching fingers with the words, and pushed her onwards.

She went, driven by a force such as she had never encountered before.

She heard the soft wash of the sea far below her above the sickening thudding of her heart as she crept forward round that terrible bend. She heard with an acuteness that made her marvel the long sweet note of the nightingale swelling among the bushes above. She also heard a watch ticking with amazing loudness close to her ear, and was aware of a very firm hand that grasped her shoulder, impelling her forward. There was no resisting that steady pressure. She crept on step by step because she could not do otherwise; and when she had rounded that awful corner at last and would fain have stopped to rest after the ordeal, she found that she must needs go on, for he would not suffer any pause.

He had followed her so closely that his hold upon her had never varied.

There seemed to her to be something electric in the very touch of his fingers. She was fully conscious of the fact that she moved by a strength outside her own.

"Go on!" he said. "Go on! There's Columbus waiting for you. Can you see the steps? They're close here. They're a bit rough, I'm afraid. I made them myself. But you'll manage them."

She came to the steps. The path had widened somewhat, and the dreadful sense of sheer depth below her was less insistent. Nevertheless, the way was far from easy, the steps being little more than deep notches in the cliff. It slanted inwards here however, and she set herself to achieve the ascent with more a.s.surance.

Her guide came immediately behind her. She felt his hand touch her at every step she took. Just at the last, realizing the nearness of the summit and safety, she tried to hasten, and in a moment slipped. He grabbed her instantly, but she could not recover her footing though she made a frantic effort to do so. She sprawled against the cliff, clutching madly at some tufts of gra.s.s and weed above her, while the man behind her gripped and held her there.

"Don't struggle!" he said. "You're all right. You won't fall. Let go of that stuff and hang on to me!"

"I can't!" she said. "I can't!"

"Let go of that stuff and hang on to me!" he said again, and the words were short and sharp. "Left hand first! Put your arm round my neck, and then get round and hang on with the other! It's only a few feet more. I can manage it."

They were the most definite instructions she had ever received in her life, and the most difficult to obey. She hung, clinging with both hands, still vainly seeking a foothold, desperately afraid to relinquish her hold and trust herself unreservedly to his single-handed strength. But, as he waited, it came to her that it was the only thing to do. With a gasp she freed one hand at length and reaching back as he held her she thrust it over his shoulder.

"Now the other hand, please!" he said.

She did not know how she did it. It was like loosing her grip upon life itself. Yet after a few seconds of torturing irresolution she obeyed him, abandoning her last hold and hanging to him in palpitating apprehension.

He put forth his full strength then. She felt the strain of his muscles as he gathered her up with one arm. With the other hand, had she but known it, he was grasping only the naked rock. Yet he moved as if absolutely sure of himself. He drew a deep hard breath, and began to mount.

It was only a few feet to the top as he had said, but the climb seemed to her unending. She was conscious throughout that his endurance was being put to the utmost test, and only by the most complete pa.s.sivity could she help him.

But he never faltered, and finally--just when she had begun to wonder if this awful nightmare of danger could ever cease--she found herself set down upon the dewy gra.s.s that covered the top of the cliff. The scent of the gorse bushes came again to her and the far sweet call of the nightingale. And she realized that the danger was past and she was back once more in the magic region of her summer dreams from which she had been so rudely flung. She saw again the s.h.i.+mmering, wonderful sea and the ever-brightening stars. One of them hung, a golden globe of light like a beacon on the dim horizon.

Then Columbus came pus.h.i.+ng and nuzzling against her, full of tender enquiries and congratulations; and something that she did not fully understand made her turn and clasp him closely with a sudden rush of tears. The danger was over, all over. And never till this moment had she realized how amazingly sweet was life.

CHAPTER IV

BROTHER d.i.c.k

She covered her emotion with the most herculean efforts at gaiety. She laughed very shakily at the solicitude expressed by Columbus, and told him tremulously how absurd and ridiculous he was to make such a fuss about nothing.

After this, feeling a little better, she ventured a glance at her companion. He was on his feet and wiping his forehead--a man of medium height and no great breadth of shoulder, but evidently well knit and athletic. Becoming by some means aware of her attention, he put away his handkerchief and turned towards her. She saw his eyes gleam under black, mobile brows that seemed to denote a considerable sense of humour. The whole of his face held an astonis.h.i.+ng amount of vitality, but the lips were straight and rather hard, so clean-cut as to be almost ascetic. He looked to her like a man who would suffer to the utmost, but never lose his self-control. And she thought she read a pride more than ordinary in the cast of his features--a man capable of practically anything save the asking or receiving of favours.

Then he spoke, and curiously all criticism vanished. "I had better introduce myself," he said. "I'm afraid I've been unpardonably rude. My name is Green."

Green! The word darted at her like an imp of mischief. The romantic dropped to the prosaic with a suddenness that provoked in her an almost irresistible desire to laugh.