ground, his face hidden in his hands.

As we went the mist grew thinner, and we could see that we were
travelling down a steep spur of the precipice, which to our left was
quite sheer, and that at the foot of it was a wide plain thickly but not
densely covered with trees. In ten minutes we were at the bottom, and
as we could neither see nor hear any sign of pursuers we paused for an
instant to rest.

Not five yards from us the cliff was broken away, and so straight that a
cat could not have climbed it.

"We chose our place well," I said pointing upwards.

"No," Emma answered, "we did not choose; it was chosen for us."

As she spoke a muffled and terrifying sound of agony reached us from
above, and then, in the layers of vapour that still stretched between
us and the sky, we perceived something huge rushing swiftly down. It
appeared; it drew near; it struck, and fell to pieces like a shattered
glass. We ran to look, and there before us were the fragments of
the diligence, and among them the mangled corpses of five of our
fellow-travellers.

This was the fate that we had escaped.



"Oh! for God's sake come away," moaned Emma, and sick with horror we
turned and ran, or rather reeled, into the shelter of the trees upon the