For a fraction of a second she stood paralysed, overwhelmed with the horror
of what had happened. Then, choking back the scream which rose to her lips,
she set off running in the direction of the spot where Tony had vanished
from sight.




CHAPTER IV

RATS IN A TRAP


Breathless, her heart thudding painfully in her side, Ann reached the
ravine and, throwing herself face downwards on the ground, crawled to the
edge. For an instant she closed her eyes, shrinking with a sick dread from
what they might show her--Tony's young, lithe body lying broken on the
rocks below, or, perhaps, only the dark blur of some awful and unmeasured
depth which would never give up its dead.

It was by a sheer effort of will that she at last forced herself to open
her eyes and peer downward. Immediately beneath the brink of the chasm the
ground dropped vertically for a few feet, but below that again it sloped
gradually outwards, culminating in a broad, projecting ledge which formed
the lip of the actual precipice itself. Tony lay on the ledge, motionless,
with outflung arms and white, upturned face. He had evidently lost his
footing, and, after the first drop, rolled helplessly downward. Only the
presence of a jagged, upstanding piece of rock had saved him from falling
clean over into the depths below.