A precipice was on one side; a
murderer on the other.
The enemy approached: he was close at hand.
Wolfert attempted to let himself down the face of the cliff. His cloak
caught in a thorn that grew on the edge. He was jerked from off his
feet and held dangling in the air, half choaked by the string with
which his careful wife had fastened the garment round his neck. Wolfert
thought his last moment had arrived; already had he committed his soul
to St. Nicholas, when the string broke and he tumbled down the bank,
bumping from rock to rock and bush to bush, and leaving the red cloak
fluttering like a bloody banner in the air.
It was a long while before Wolfert came to himself. When he opened his
eyes the ruddy streaks of the morning were already shooting up the sky.
He found himself lying in the bottom of a boat, grievously battered. He
attempted to sit up but was too sore and stiff to move. A voice
requested him in friendly accents to lie still. He turned his eyes
toward the speaker: it was Dirk Waldron. He had dogged the party, at
the earnest request of Dame Webber and her daughter, who, with the
laudable curiosity of their sex, had pried into the secret
consultations of Wolfert and the doctor. Dirk had been completely
distanced in following the light skiff of the fisherman, and had just
come in time to rescue the poor money-digger from his pursuer.
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