Norton finish
the work you have set your hands to. It's an honor, Mr. Lane, to have
a patient like you."
Whereupon Brocky Lane grew promptly crimson and tongue-tied.
"And now the view, Mr. Norton, and I am ready to go."
He led the way to the outer ledge from which last night they had
entered the cave.
"In daylight you can see half round the world from here," he said as
they stood with their backs to the rock. "Now you can get an idea of
what it's like."
Below her was the chasm formed by these cliffs standing sheer and
fronting other tall cliffs looming blackly, the stars beginning to fade
in the sky above them. Norton pushed a stone outward with his boot;
she heard it strike, rebound, strike again . . . and then there was
silence; when the falling stone reached the bottom no sound came back
to tell her how far it had dropped.
Turning a little to look southward, she saw the cliffs standing farther
and farther back on each side so that the eye might travel between them
and out over the lower slopes and the distant stretches of level land
which, more now than ever, seemed a great limitless sea. The stars
were paling rapidly; the first glint of the new day was in the air, the
world lay shadowy and silent and lifeless, softened in the seeming,
but, as in the daytime, slumbrous under an atmosphere of brooding
mystery.
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