She saw a jutting bit of rock a few inches below her feet. She let herself down to the extreme limit of reach, and found herself just able to touch the support with a toe. She released her hand-hold, and thus remained, half-standing, half-lying in the hole. She searched out other points to which her fingers might cling, at the height of her breast. Clenching these, she bent her knees, and finally came to a crouching posture on the tiny ledge that had been under her feet. In the like tedious, slow fashion, she continued the descent, for a distance of perhaps twenty feet, without mishap, though in constant danger of a fall. But, at this point, new difficulties threatened. Though she took long to search, she could find nothing to afford a foothold, even the tiniest. To make the matter worse, just here the smoothness of the walls was such that her hands could secure only a doubtful grip. She studied the situation painstakingly by means of the torch, making sure that nowhere a projection of the stone escaped her observation. She was distraught by this ill fortune, which threatened the ruin of her hopes. Finally, however, she perceived by the light of the torch that, two yards or more below the point to which her feet reached, the chimney bent a little, toward the horizontal. At the sight, Margaret’s courage sprang to new life. Without a second of delay in which fear might grow, she loosed her hold, and let herself slip downward.
The steepness of the chimney was so great that her movement was rather a fall than a slide. In the very second of the start, she felt the violent impact of her feet against the stone as they struck the bend. Nor was the change of direction sufficient to overcome the impetus of the drop, as she had hoped. Her body shot onward down the rough slope. She caught at the walls with her fingers, but, though the ragged surface tore the skin from her flesh, she could get no clutch strong enough to stay the flight. The torch had slipped from her grasp without her even being aware of its loss at the time. In the darkness, she went hurtling on. Her spirit broke in those seconds of dreadfulness. She felt that death waited at the end of the fall. Saxe’s name was on her lips when she crashed into pause.