Helen had of course fallen straight to the upper edge of the slope, where she had struck feet first, and from there had slid and rolled to the very edge of the long drop to the beach. Her skirt had caught in the branches of an enterprising bayberry bush which had managed to find roothold there, and to this bush and a clump of beach grass she was clinging, her hands outstretched and her body extended along the edge of the clay precipice.
She turned her head and looked up at him. Her face was white, but she did not scream.
“Helen!” cried Albert, again. “Helen, do you hear me?”
“Can you hold on just as you are for a few minutes?”
“You've got to, you know. Here! You're not going to faint, are you?”
“You can't! You mustn't! Here! Don't you do it! Stop!”
There was just a trace of his grandfather in the way he shouted the order. Whether or not the vigor of the command produced the result is a question, but at any rate she did not faint.
“Now you stay right where you are,” he ordered again. “And hang on as tight as you can. I'm coming down.”
Come down he did, swinging over the brink with his face to the bank, dropping on his toes to the upper edge of the slope and digging boots and fingers into the clay to prevent sliding further.
“Hang on!” he cautioned, over his shoulder. “I'll be there in a second. There! Now wait until I get my feet braced. Now give me your hand--your left hand. Hold on with your right.”
Slowly and cautiously, clinging to his hand, he pulled her away from the edge of the precipice and helped her to scramble up to where he clung. There she lay and panted. He looked at her apprehensively.
“Don't go and faint now, or any foolishness like that,” he ordered sharply.
“No, no, I won't. I'll try not to. But how are we ever going to climb up--up there?”
Above them and at least four feet out of reach, even if they stood up, and that would be a frightfully risky proceeding, the sod projected over their heads like the eaves of a house.
“Not much use. Nobody to hear us. Besides, we can always do that if we have to. I think I see a way out of the mess. If we can't get up, perhaps we can get down.”
“Yes, it isn't all as steep as it is here. I believe we might sort of zig-zag down if we were careful. You hold on here just as you are; I'm going to see what it looks like around this next point.”