At last the grapple caught.
"Now, all together!" cried my companion, and simultaneously we threw
our weight upon the slender rope. The anchor apparently did not give
an inch.
"Let me go first," said Hall, pushing me aside as I caught the first
knot above my head. "It's my device, and it's only fair that I should
have the first try."
In a minute he was many feet up the wall, climbing swiftly hand over
hand, but occasionally stopping and twisting his leg around the rope
while he took breath.
"It's easier than I expected," he called down, when he had ascended
about one hundred feet. "Here and there the rock offers a little hold
for the knees."
I watched him, breathless with anxiety, and, as he got higher, my
imagination pictured the little gold grapple, invisible above the brow
of the precipice, with perhaps a single thin prong wedged into a
crevice, and slowly ploughing its way towards the edge with each
impulse of the climber, until but another pull was needed to set it
flying! So vivid was my fancy that I tried to banish it by noticing
that a certain knot in the rope remained just at the level of my eyes,
where it had been from the start.
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