"Well, old boy," he said cheerfully, "this is a fine sight! Have you had enough of it? Shall we go back?"
Sigurd drew imperceptibly nearer. Lorimer, from his point of vantage behind a huge bowlder, drew nearer also.
"Go back?" echoed Sigurd. "Why should we go back?"
"Why, indeed!" laughed Errington, lightly balancing himself on the trembling rocks beneath him. "Except that I should scarcely think this is the best place on which to pass the night! Not enough room, and too much noise! What say you?"
"Oh, brave, brave, fool!" cried the dwarf in sudden excitement. "Are you not afraid?"
The young baronet's keen eyes glanced him over with amused wonder.
"What of?" he demanded coolly. Still nearer came Sigurd--nearer also came the watchful, though almost invisible Lorimer.
"Look down there!" continued Sigurd in shrill tones, pointing to the foaming gulf. "Look at the Elf-danz--see the beautiful spirits with the long pale green hair and glittering wings! See how they beckon, beckon, beckon! They want some one to join them--look how their white arms wave,--they throw back their golden veils and smile at us! They call to you--you with the strong figure and the proud eyes--why do you not go to them? They will kiss and caress you--they have sweet lips and snow-white bosoms,--they will love you and take care of you--they are as fair as Thelma!"
"Are they? I doubt it!" and Errington smiled dreamily as he turned his head again towards the fleecy whirl of white water, and saw at once with an artist's quick eye what his sick-brained companion meant by the Elf-danz, in the fantastic twisting, gliding shapes tossed up in the vaporous mist of the Fall. "But I'll take your word, Sigurd, without making the elves' personal acquaintance! Come along--this place is bad for you--we'll dance with the green-haired nymphs another time."
And with a light laugh he was about to turn away, when he was surprised by a sudden, strange convulsion of Sigurd's countenance--his blue eyes flashed with an almost phosphorescent lustre,--his pale skin flushed deeply red, and the veins in his forehead started into swelled and knotted prominence.
"Another time!" he screamed loudly; "no, no! Now--now! Die, robber of Thelma's love! Die--die--die!"
Repeating these words like quick gasps of fury, he twisted his meager arms tightly round Errington, and thrust him fiercely with all his might towards the edge of the Fall. For one second Philip strove against him--the next, he closed his eyes--Thelma's face smiled on his mind in that darkness as though in white farewell--the surging blood roared in his ears with more thunder than the terrific tumble of the torrent--"God!" he muttered, and then--then he stood safe on the upper part of the rocky platform with Lorimer's strong hand holding him in a vice-like grasp, and Lorimer's face, pale, but looking cheerfully into his. For a moment he was too bewildered to speak. His friend loosened him and laughed rather forcedly--a slight tremble of his lips was observable under his fair moustache.