Looking down had already given him a touch of vertigo, and he was about to draw back. Then his heart missed a beat. Twenty feet to his right, and about six feet down, protruding round the corner of the cliff, there was something white. It looked ... it was . , . it could only be an outflung hand and forearm.
Leaping to his feet, he ran to the corner, knelt again and peered over. Stephanie was lying there, near the bottom of the short slope. She was on her side, supported only by one elbow which had caught in the V of a tough root. Her head was thrown back and her eyes were closed. It looked as if she had been knocked unconscious by hitting her head on a rock, or had fainted.
'Stephanie!' he called to her. 'Stephanie! Oh, thank God you didn't go over.'
At the sound of his voice, her eyes opened. They stared up at him transfixed by terror. As he stared back, his relief at finding her still alive was suddenly submerged by a wave of apprehension. Her body was more than half-way down the slope. How could he possibly get her up? He had no head for heights. His only asset was his strength, and he had no rope or anything of that kind he could throw to her.
He drew back, stood up and looked round, his eyes searching feverishly for something which might enable him to rescue her. The long stretch of road to either side of the cliff was empty: there were no tough creepers that he might have twisted into a rope; no long, stout branch broken from a tree, one end of which he could have lowered for her to cling to. As his glance darted this way and that, an anguished cry floated up from her.
'Don't leave me! For God's sake, don't leave me!'
The inference that he might even contemplate abandoning her angered him; yet at the same time it fixed upon him more firmly than ever the obligation to drag her up to safety, and he trembled at the thought of having to set about it. Kneeling down again, he stretched out his hands and legs until he was lying at full length, with his head and arms protruding over the edge, then he called to her.
'Don't worry. Don't worry. Everything will be all right. I'll get you up somehow.' Yet even as he sought to reassure her, he felt that he could not possibly do it. His arms, when thrust downward to their fullest extent, did not bring his fingertips within two feet of her and, each time his glance left her face for a second, it took in the yawning gulf that lay beyond her head and shoulders. From where he lay, he could not actually see down into the chasm, but the fact that no more than eighteen inches beyond Stephanie's feet the slope abruptly ended, with nothing between it and the now shadowy far side of the valley, made him feel sick and giddy.
An inch at a time he edged forward, his chest gradually protruding further over until the weight of his hips and legs, still lying on the flat, was no longer sufficient to anchor the upper part of his body. His hands were now within a few inches of hers. He was already having to dig his fingers into the soft earth to prevent himself slipping further down the slope. Had he attempted to take her weight, they must inevitably both have gone over.
For a few minutes he remained in that position, knowing that to attempt to haul her up must prove fatal, yet his mind in revolt at the thought of beating a retreat. As he stared downwards, he imagined what must follow if his hands suddenly lost their grip on the earth.
He would slither head first down the slope, cannon into her, tearing her from her precarious hold, and the two of them would shoot out into space. There would be the sensation of rushing downwards more swiftly than in the swiftest lift. The plunge into the abyss would not rob them of consciousness, and time was an illusion. Everyone knew that hours spent in school dragged on leaden feet, while those spent at a jolly party sped on silver wings. It might take only seconds by the clock for them to hurtle downward the first two hundred feet with the uprush of air whistling through their hair but, in their terror-stricken minds, it would seem long minutes of waiting to be smashed to pieces. With luck, when they hit the lower slope, they would break their necks, but the odds were against their striking the mountain-side head first. It was more likely that their bodies, twisted grotesquely out of shape and tortured by splintered bones, would bounce and bounce onward, accumulating still further injuries while they continued to remain conscious for several minutes longer.
As these nightmare thoughts raced through Robbie's mind, the sight of the razor edge beyond which death lay began to have a terrible influence upon him. It seemed to be exerting a physical pull on his shoulders. He was seized with the impulse to kick out with his legs and throw himself over. A wave of nausea swept over him. He closed his eyes and somehow fought it down. But when he opened them again he knew that if he remained where he was, even a few minutes longer, he would be overcome by vertigo and that that would be the end of him. Meeting Stephanie's eyes again, he whispered hoarsely:
T can't make it. I'm sorry. There will be a lorry or car along soon. You must hang on till help comes.5
Her face was chalk-white. For the past few minutes, while he had been edging himself down towards her, she had remained silent and unmoving, courageously conserving her strength for the effort that would be needed to take as much of her own weight as possible, while he hauled her to safety.
At his admission of defeat, terror showed in her eyes again, and she gasped: 'No! No! The earth under me may give at any moment.'
Then, rendered desperate by her fears, she shifted her position and made an upward grab at one of Robbie's hands. She missed it by inches; and worse. Her sudden movement snapped off one prong of the V of root that had been supporting her. With a piercing scream, she slithered down another two feet. Now on her stomach, she clawed frantically at the earth. He fingers dug into it, getting a dubious hold, but, before she managed to check her slide, her feet and legs up to the knees were dangling over the precipice.
'Hang on!' yelled Robbie, 'Hang on! Hang on!' But there could now be no question of waiting for help to arrive. Had she not moved, there would have been a good chance that the root would have supported her until a vehicle had come on the scene with the means to rescue her. Now she was clinging to the steep slope only with her bare hands. In a matter of minutes, her muscles must tire, her hold relax and with one last scream she would disappear into the abyss.
Impelled by instinct rather than conscious courage, Robbie accepted the challenge that this crisis had forced upon him. He slithered forward until only the toes of his shoes still retained a purchase on the edge of the road above him. He could now have grasped one of Stephanie's hands but, as she was supporting herself by them, he dared not. Instead, he seized her by the hair.
As she felt the pull on it, she only gritted her teeth and, now that he was holding her from slipping backwards, threw her hands upward, clawed at the earth again, then drew her legs in from over the yawning gulf.
For a full minute they remained like that, while the sweat poured off Robbie's face and he could hear her breath coming in short, harsh gasps. He had saved her from going over; but for him to wriggle up the slope backwards, much less draw her after him, he knew to be impossible. It seemed that they were now stuck there, until she croaked:
'Let go my hair and dig both your hands into the earth. If you can support yourself like that, I think I can clamber up alongside you.'
He did as she said, striving to embrace the earth with his whole body; then he closed his eyes to check another wave of nausea. To him, the next few minutes seemed an age. He could feel her beside him and now and then she laid a hand lightly on him while steadying herself in her upward climb. Once she slipped and bore heavily upon him to save herself. His heart missed a beat, but his grip on the surface of the slope held.