To retrace
his steps, seemed quite as difficult as to proceed. The sun too had
declined, or was effectually concealed by the towering rocks, for
sudden darkness seemed around him. There was but one way, and Stanley
prepared to scale the precipitous crag before him with more eagerness
than he would a beaten path. He threw off his cloak, folded it in
the smallest possible compass, and secured it like a knapsack to his
shoulders, slung his sword over his neck, and, with a vigorous spring,
which conquered several paces of slippery rock at once, commenced the
ascent. Some brushwood, and one or two stunted trees, gave him now
and then a hold for his hands; and occasional ledges in the rock, a
resting for his foot; but still one false step, one failing nerve, and
he must have fallen backwards and been dashed to pieces; but to Arthur
the danger was his safety. Where he was going, indeed he knew not. He
could see no further than the summit of the crag, which appeared like
a line against the sky; but any bewilderment were preferable to the
strange stagnation towards outward objects, which had enwrapped him
ten minutes before.
Panting, breathless, almost exhausted, he reached the summit, and
before him yawned a chasm, dark, fathomless, as if nature in some wild
convulsion had rent the rock asunder.
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