438 DESPERATE LEAP. 



a trusty servant to hold the rope at the top. While the 

 boy was dangling midway between sky and water, the 

 servant, who was unused to his situation, whether owing to 

 a sudden dizziness from looking downward on the boy's 

 motions, or misgivings as to his own powers of holding him 

 up, felt a cold, sickly shivering creep over him, accompanied 

 with a certainty that he was about to faint ; the inevitable 

 consequence of which, he had sense enough left to know, 

 would be the certain death of the boy, and, in all probability, 

 of himself, as in the act of fainting it was most likely he 

 would fall forward, and follow the rope and boy down the 

 precipice. In this dilemma, he uttered a loud, despairing 

 scream, which was fortunately heard by a woman working 

 in an adjoining field, who, running up, was just in time 

 to catch the rope, as the fainting man fell senseless at her 

 feet. 



We shall add two more equally hazardous, and one fatal. 

 Many bird-catchers go on these expeditions without any 

 companion to hold the rope or assist them. It was on 

 such a solitary excursion, that a man, having fastened his 

 rope to a stake on the top, let himself down far below ; and, 

 in his ardour for collecting birds and eggs, followed the 

 course of a ledge, beneath a mass of overhanging rock : 

 unfortunately he had omitted to take the usual precaution 

 of tying the rope round his body, but held it carelessly in 

 his hand ; when, in a luckless moment, as he was busily 

 engaged in pillaging a nest, it slipped from his grasp, and' 

 after swinging backwards and forwards three or four times, 

 without coming within reach, at last became stationary over 

 the ledge of the projecting rock, leaving the bird-catcher 

 apparently without a chance of escape, for to ascend the 

 precipice without a rope was impossible, and none were 

 near to hear his cries, or afford him help. What was to be 

 done ? Death stared him in the face. After a few minutes' 

 pause, he made up his mind. By a desperate leap he might 

 regain the rope, but if he failed, and, at the distance at 

 which it hung, the chances were against him, his fate was 

 certain, amidst the pointed crags ready to receive him, over 



