She prepared to ascend,saying,This is the moment I anticipated when on the tower.I thought it would come!
This is not a time for superstition,said Knight.Dismiss all that.
I will,she said humbly.
Now put your foot into my hand:next the other.Thats good--well done.Hold to my shoulder.
She placed her feet upon the stirrup he made of his hand,and was high enough to get a view of the natural surface of the hill over the bank.
Can you now climb on to level ground?
I am afraid not.I will try.
What can you see?
The sloping common.
What upon it?
Purple heather and some grass.
Nothing more--no man or human being of any kind?
Nobody.
Now try to get higher in this way.You see that tuft of sea-pink above you.Get that well into your hand,but dont trust to it entirely.Then step upon my shoulder,and I think you will reach the top.
With trembling limbs she did exactly as he told her.The preternatural quiet and solemnity of his manner overspread upon herself,and gave her a courage not her own.She made a spring from the top of his shoulder,and was up.
Then she turned to look at him.
By an ill fate,the force downwards of her bound,added to his own weight,had been too much for the block of quartz upon which his feet depended.It was,indeed,originally an igneous protrusion into the enormous masses of black strata,which had since been worn away from the sides of the alien fragment by centuries of frost and rain,and now left it without much support.
It moved.Knight seized a tuft of sea-pink with each hand.
The quartz rock which had been his salvation was worse than useless now.It rolled over,out of sight,and away into the same nether sky that had engulfed the telescope.
One of the tufts by which he held came out at the root,and Knight began to follow the quartz.It was a terrible moment.Elfride uttered a low wild wail of agony,bowed her head,and covered her face with her hands.