piercing tone to my voice. The chasm and the rocks loudened and
reverberated my accents while I exclaimed,--"_Man! Clithero!_"

My summons was effectual. He shook off his trance in a moment. He had
been stretched upon his back, with his eyes fixed upon a craggy
projecture above, as if he were in momentary expectation of its fall and
crushing him to atoms. Now he started on his feet. He was conscious of
the voice, but not of the quarter whence it came. He was looking
anxiously around when I again spoke:--"Look hither. It is I who called."

He looked. Astonishment was now mingled with every other dreadful
meaning in his visage. He clasped his hands together and bent forward,
as if to satisfy himself that his summoner was real. At the next moment
he drew back, placed his hands upon his breast, and fixed his eyes on
the ground.

This pause was not likely to be broken but by me. I was preparing again
to speak. To be more distinctly heard, I advanced closer to the brink.
During this action, my eye was necessarily withdrawn from him. Having
gained a somewhat nearer station, I looked again, but--he was gone!

The seat which he so lately occupied was empty. I was not forewarned of
his disappearance or directed to the course of his flight by any
rustling among leaves. These, indeed, would have been overpowered by the
noise of the cataract. The place where he sat was the bottom of a
cavity, one side of which terminated in the verge of the abyss, but the
other sides were perpendicular or overhanging. Surely he had not leaped
into this gulf; and yet that he had so speedily scaled the steep was
impossible.