A few
seconds later he was lying on his stomach, with his face over the
edge, looking down at me.
"Come on!" he shouted. "It's all right."
When I had pulled myself over the brink at his side I grasped his hand
and pressed it without a word. We understood one another.
"It was pretty close to a miracle," he remarked at last. "Look at
this."
The rock over which the grapple had slipped was deeply scored by the
unyielding point of the metal, and exactly at the verge of the
precipice the prong had wedged itself into a narrow crack, so firmly
that we had to chip away the stone in order to release it. If it had
slipped a single inch farther before taking hold it would have been
all over with my friend.
Such experiences shake the strongest nerves, and we sat on the shelf
we had attained for fully a quarter of an hour before we ventured to
attack the next precipice which hung beetling directly above us. It
was not as lofty as the one we had just ascended, but it impended to
such a degree that we saw we should have to climb our rope while it
swung free in the air!
Luckily we had little difficulty in getting a grip for the prongs, and
we took every precaution to test the security of the anchorage, not
only putting our combined weight repeatedly upon the rope, but
flipping and jerking it with all our strength.
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