Then came a shriller, sharper cry from Miss Jenny, followed by the exclamation, 'Don't!' reiterated in great alarm.
But it was too late: Jim was descending the single rope into the horrible pit, hand under hand. Jenny's vision grew dim; she lost sight of him in the deeper gloom of the shaft; and as she saw him last his upturned eyes were fixed upon her with a strange, smiling, singular expression.
Suddenly the rope, on which the girl now concentrated her trembling, anxious gaze, ceased to vibrate. He had reached the bottom, then. But why did he not shout up to her his safety? She swayed in her saddle with the suspense.
Watching the rope with an agonised face, she hardly breathed until it began once more to vibrate; then she lowered her eyes into the impenetrable gloom; and at length a figure, spattered and stained with dirt, sweat streaming from the white forehead, and blots of blood upon the hands, with the little riding-whip between his teeth—a figure that ten minutes of strenuous effort had turned into an apparition—
