AN INCIDENT AT GIBRALTAR. 89 



van, as I had promised : he received me, as usual with apparent 

 kindness; but during dinner, he was often abstracted there was 

 evident agitation in his tone and manner and for the first time in 

 my life I felt uncomfortable in his company. After dinner he pro- 

 posed a walk ; I left the house first; and chancing to glance in at 

 the window as I passed round the angle, I saw him place a short 

 dagger in his bosom. Suspicion then, for the first time, entered 

 into my mind ; and the manner of Donovan, as we ascended, was 

 calculated to increase it. You recollect, that about half a mile be- 

 yond the highest piquet station, the road to the eastern point branches 

 into two. I proposed that we should go different ways. Donovan 

 took the zigzag path ; I followed the narrow steep path, intending 

 to shun another meeting, and to scramble down the southern side. 

 In passing the entrance to the excavations, I noticed that the iron 

 gate was open left open probably accidentally and the coolness 

 of these subterranean galleries invited me to enter. While walking 

 through them, 1 stopped to look out at one of the port-holes ; and 

 seeing upon a little platform of the rock, about nine feet below, some 

 stalks of white narcissus, I felt a strong desire to possess myself of 

 them in fact, I thought Emily would like them, for we had often, 

 when walking on the rock, or rowing under it, noticed these pretty 

 flowers in inaccessible spots, and regretted the impossibility of reach- 

 ing them. Betwixt the port-hole and the platform there was a small 

 square projection, and a geranium root twining round it, by which 

 I saw that I could easily and safely accomplish my purpose. I ac- 

 cordingly stepped, or rather dropped upon the projection, and, only 

 lightly touching it, descended to the platform. Having possessed 

 myself of the flowers, I seized the projection to raise myself up ; but 

 to my inexpressible horror, the mass gave way, and with the gerani- 

 um root, bounded from point to point into the sea. The separation 

 of this fragment left the face of the rock entirely bare, without point, 

 fissure, or root : it was at least nine feet from the spot where I stood 

 to the lower part of the port-hole. It was impossible, by any exer- 

 tion, to reach this ; and the face of the rock was so smooth, that even 

 a bird could not have found a footing upon it. I saw that I was lost 

 I saw that no effort of mine could save me, and that no human 

 eye could see me and the roaring of the waves below drowned all 

 cries for succour. I was placed about the middle of the precipice 

 with seven or eight hundred feet both above and below. Above, 

 the rock projected, so that no one could see me from the summit; 

 and the bulging of the rock on both sides, I saw must prevent any 

 one discovering me from the sea, unless a boat should chance to 

 come directly under the spot. 



Evening passed away it grew dark ; and when night came, I 

 sat down upon the platform, leaning my back against the rock. 

 Night passed too, and morning dawned this was the morning when 

 Emily would have given herself to me the morning from which I 

 had in imagination dated the commencement of happiness. I re- 

 newed my vain efforts ; I sprang up to the port-hole, but fell back 



VOL. i. 1833, M 



