neither to go on nor retreat, then he sat and hung his leg down, felt his
guide's hands pulling at him, had a horrible sensation of sliding over
the edge into the unfathomable, splashed, and felt himself in a slushy
gutter, impenetrably dark.

"This way," whispered the voice, and he began crawling along the gutter
through the trickling thaw, pressing himself against the wall. They
continued along it for some minutes. He seemed to pass through a hundred
stages of misery, to pass minute after minute through a hundred degrees
of cold, damp, and exhaustion. In a little while he ceased to feel his
hands and feet.

The gutter sloped downwards. He observed that they were now many feet
below the edge of the buildings. Rows of spectral white shapes like the
ghosts of blind-drawn windows rose above them. They came to the end of a
cable fastened above one of these white windows, dimly visible and
dropping into impenetrable shadows. Suddenly his hand came against his
guide's. "_Still_!" whispered the latter very softly.

He looked up with a start and saw the huge wings of the flying machine
gliding slowly and noiselessly overhead athwart the broad band of
snow-flecked grey-blue sky. In a moment it was hidden again.

"Keep still; they were just turning."

For awhile both were motionless, then Graham's companion stood up, and
reaching towards the fastenings of the cable fumbled with some
indistinct tackle.

"What is that?" asked Graham.