Miss Silver – #26, 1953

The ledge was about six inches wide. Candida stood on it with her toes stubbed against the rock. Her left hand was clenched on a small projecting knob about level with the top of her head. With the other she was feeling carefully and methodically for something which she could catch hold of on her right. There didn’t seem to be anything, but she went on feeling. In the end she had to come back to the shallow crack which she had discarded. It would only take the tips of her fingers. By itself it really wasn’t any good, but it did just give the least little help to the hand that was clutching the knob. She stood there and wondered what she was going to do next.

There wasn’t very much that she could do. In fact, to be quite frank and plain with herself, there wasn’t anything at all. She had got as far as she could. She couldn’t possibly get any farther. If she looked up, she could see the ledge which she had been hoping to reach. That is to say, she could see the jutting rock which was the under part of the ledge, and it was like a great stone buttress thrusting out from the cliff and thrusting her away. There was no conceivable means by which she could get past that overhang – not unless she were a fly and could crawl upside down. She didn’t let herself look at the beach, because of course that was the stupidest thing you could do. But whether she looked or not, she knew very well what she would see – sharp black rocks, and the tide coming racing in. If it had been deep sea that you could jump off into, she would have let herself go and have tried for a better place to climb, but you would want to know that there was a great deal of water over those rocks before you would take a chance with them. Better think about something else. Quickly.