over, fearing what I should see. But I saw nothing but the bare
track winding there, and I remembered that the cliff overhung.

Then, as I scanned every rock and cranny below me a man came out
from under the overhang at the foot of the cliff and looked up. For
a moment my heart leapt, for I thought it was Erpwald. But it was
only the traveller we had seen, and he must have been looking at
what had rolled into the hollow that hid it from me. He glanced up
and caught sight of me.

"How did it happen?" he called up to me.

"Dead?" I called back, with a terror of what I knew would be his
answer.

Then he laughed at me.

"Do you expect a horse to be leather all through, Master? Of course
he is.--Saddle and all smashed to bits."

Then a dull anger took me that he thought of the horse only, as it
seemed, unless he was mazed as I was with it all.

"The man--the man," I said.

"There is no man here, Master. Did one fall?" he said in a new
voice, and he crossed to the other side of the gorge and scanned
the face of the cliff.

"He is not to be seen," he said. "Maybe he has caught yonder."