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Updated: June 9, 2025
Jim worked his way along carefully, swimming or floating for the most part, for the walls for many miles offered not even a hand-hold nor did they once give back in beach or eddy. The loneliness was appalling. The hardship of the work was astonishingly increased, robbed of Tuck's unfailing cheerfulness and faith. There was one moment when, toward sunset, Jim's strength almost failed him.
I reach for where I think it ought to be, and at the same instant my feet leave the ground. It is all in the toss. The next moment I may be rolling in the gravel with broken ribs, or arms, or head. But my fingers grip the hand-hold, there is a jerk on my arms that slightly pivots my body, and my feet land on the steps with sharp violence. I sit down, feeling very proud of myself.
He could go up the bole of this leaning tree very quickly, for the huge grapevine gave him a hand-hold all the way. "Whatever are you going to do?" cried Lettie Bronson, looking up at him, as did the other girls. "Now," said Hiram, in the first small crotch of the tree, which was almost directly over the stranded launch, "if you girls have any pluck at all, I can get you ashore, one by one."
There they were in the deep water, which glided along at the foot of a blank, carefully smoothed-away wall of rock, perfectly perpendicular, and, save where it was dotted here and there with mossy growth, offering not the slightest foot- or hand-hold. "Why, it must be fully fifty feet high to that carved coping-like projection," said Brace.
Cheered by this, Ralph began to climb again, finding the task easier, and the next minute he had hold of the tough stem of the hawthorn; and heedless of the thorns, dragged himself up into it, stood upright, reached another good, strong hand-hold, and then stepped right up on to a broad shelf of grass-grown limestone.
In all probability he would have found hand-hold the next moment, but, scared anew by the rush through the air, the young ravens began to flap their wings violently, and that was sufficient to disturb the lad's equilibrium. He made a desperate effort to recover it, but one foot gave way, and he fell, scraping the edge.
Up that dark trickle he climbed, and the sun climbed with him. The grass gave him hand-hold. The chalk was rough and shale-like. He dug knees and toes into it. There was a constant dribble of stuff away from beneath his feet, and once a little land-slide, slithering seaward. Beneath was nothing but a shining waste, waiting for him. He rather felt than saw it: for he dared not look down.
I then closed my letter by saying that in the future, if he entertained an idea that I had got to fail in business, I wished he would kindly keep it to himself, as there would be time enough for me to consider the matter after my creditors had become dissatisfied; and added that as far as I was personally concerned, I intended to stick to the wreck as long as there was a hand-hold left; and that I'd pay one hundred cents on the dollar if I had to collect my bills at the muzzle of a shot-gun.
But he didn't land as skillfully. He touched the wall on his hands and knees and bounced away and tried helplessly to swim to a hand-hold. It would have been funny except that Joe was in no mood for humor. Mike whipped off his belt and flipped the end of it to Haney. He caught it and was drawn gently to the wall. Haney's shoes clicked to a hold. The Chief landed more expertly.
"What made him buy that sing-song girl?" Regarding this, Ruth had ideas of her own, but she wanted the doctor's point of view. "Maybe he realized that he was slipping fast and thought a fine action might give him a hand-hold on life again. You tell me he didn't like the stuff." "He shuddered when he drank." "Well, that's a hopeful sign. I'll test him out later; see if there is any craving.
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