At last, with an irresistible spurt of fury, Crane drove Peck right into the bushes with a great crash and would not let him out. The critic was not vanquished, however, for, despite the foliage and twigs, he continued to parry and thrust with dangerous accuracy and force.
Just at this point a strange thing happened. Right behind Peck there was a tearing, crashing sound and a cry, loud, keen, despairing, terrible, followed immediately by the noise of a body descending among the cedars growing along the face of the awful precipice.
It was a woman's voice, shrieking in deadly horror that then came up out of the dizzy depth of space below!
The men let fall their swords and leaped to the edge of the cliff with the common thought that it was Miss Moyne who had fallen over. They reeled back giddy and sick, staggering as if drunken.
Far down they had seen something white fluttering and gleaming amid a tuft of cedars and a quavering voice had cried:
Hotel Helicon was shaken out of its sleep by the startling rumor to the effect that Miss Moyne had fallen down the precipice at Eagle's Nest.
Of all the rudely awakened and mightily frightened inmates, perhaps Miss Moyne herself was most excited by this waft of bad news. She had been sleeping very soundly in dreamless security and did not at first feel the absurdity of being told that she had just tumbled down the escarpment, which in fact she never yet had summoned the courage to approach, even when sustained by a strong masculine arm.
"O dear! how did it happen?" she demanded of her aunt, Mrs. Coleman Rhodes, who had rushed upon her dainty couch with the frightful announcement of her accident.
"Oh, Alice! you are here, you are not hurt at all! Oh!" Mrs. Rhodes went on, "and what _can_ it all mean!"
Everybody rushed out, of course, as soon as hurried dressing would permit, and fell into the confusion that filled the halls and main veranda.
Crane was talking in a loud, but well modulated strain, explaining the accident:
"Mr. Peck and I," he went on to say, "were enjoying a friendly turn at sword-play up here at Eagle's Nest; couldn't sleep, needed exercise, and went up there so as not to disturb any one. While we were fencing she came rushing past through those bushes and leaped right over with a great shriek. She--"