She began to feel like a usurper whose
head might at any moment be taken off.

And, with that, she decided to vacate!

Drawing up her feet much more gracefully
than her predecessor had done, she
curled her body in the seat and raised it
slowly until she was in a standing position,
grasping the stone arms of the chair,
turned--turned rather sickeningly, to be
sure, until her breast was against the
broad rock down which she had slid,
then reached upward for a handhold by
which to climb--to draw herself up.

There was one. The nickum--churlish
climber--had pulled himself up by
it. Like him, she had fought shy of it,
sliding down, for fear it should catch in
her clothing.

A little spur it was, projecting from a
slight fissure, what he called a "nick," in the
rock, rather more than half-way up,--a
good seven feet from the rocky armchair.

Breathlessly she reached upward, to
grasp it.

[[83]]

p082 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p083w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p084

v?