Despair gives
courage, and finding herself in this fearful predicament, Lady Staunton
did not hesitate to risk the ascent by the precarious means which this
accommodation afforded; and, carefully assisted by the person who had
thus providentially come to her aid, she reached the summit in safety.
She did not, however, even look around her until she saw her nephew
lightly and actively follow her examples although there was now no one to
hold the ladder fast. When she saw him safe she looked round, and could
not help shuddering at the place and company in which she found herself.
They were on a sort of platform of rock, surrounded on every side by
precipices, or overhanging cliffs, and which it would have been scarce
possible for any research to have discovered, as it did not seem to be
commanded by any accessible position. It was partly covered by a huge
fragment of stone, which, having fallen from the cliffs above, had been
intercepted by others in its descent, and jammed so as to serve for a
sloping roof to the farther part of the broad shelf or platform on which
they stood. A quantity of withered moss and leaves, strewed beneath this
rude and wretched shelter, showed the lairs,--they could not be termed
the beds,--of those who dwelt in this eyrie, for it deserved no other
name.
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