I took a few preliminary sips of whisky, stretched my rusty limbs,
and, placing one foot in a jagged crevice of the wall, swarmed
painfully up. How slow and how hazardous was the process! I scratched
my fingers, inured to the pen but a stranger to any rougher substance;
I ruined my box-calf boots, I split my trousers at the knees, and I
felt that my hat had parted with its shape for ever; and yet I
continued the ascent. The end came all too suddenly. When within an
ace of victory, I yielded to impulse, and with an energy the desperate
condition of my skin and clothes alone could account for, I swung up,
and--the outer edge of the wall melted beneath me, my hands
frantically clutched at nothingness, a hideous sensation of falling
surged through my brain, my ears and eyes filled to bursting, and with
a terrific crash that seemed to drive my head and spine right through
my stomach, I met the black, uprising earth, and lost consciousness.
Providentially for me, I had pitched head first into a furze bush
which broke the fall, otherwise I must have met with serious injury.
As it was, when I recovered my momentary loss of consciousness, I
found that I had sustained no worse harm than a severe shaking,
scratches galore, and the utter demolition of my clothes! I picked
myself up with difficulty, and spent some time searching for my hat
and stick--which I at length discovered, lodged, of course, where one
would least have thought of looking for them.
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