Amanda Scott Read Online Free PDF Page A

refuge. “It is too high,” she said. “We could not climb up there, and even if we could, they would surely see us.”
    “Not if that ledge is deep enough,” he said. “If I can manage to lift you to my shoulders, I believe you can scramble up there. Are you stout-hearted enough to try?”
    “I think we should move on as quickly as possible and put more distance between us and those dreadful men.”
    When he did not reply but only waited with a nearly tactile air of patience, she said, “Oh, very well, but I do not see what my getting up there will accomplish.”
    “You can at least judge for yourself whether we both can fit up there.”
    “But do you really think you can lift me? Only a few moments ago, you said that you could barely stand.”
    “Now who is the naysayer?”
    “But you did say that!”
    “Aye, sure, but I find myself astonished at how much strength fear can lend one at a time like this,” he said. “Come now, and we’ll see if we can do the thing.”
    With startling ease, he lifted her to sit on his right shoulder and then steadied her as she braced herself against the wall and stood up, moving her left foot to his left shoulder. Standing so, she experienced a dizzying sense of the immodesty of her position, but he seemed unaware of it as he took the torch from the crevice in which he had jammed it while he lifted her, and raised it higher. Her chin was even with the ledge, and she saw that it was much deeper than she had expected it to be.
    “The space is large enough for both of us,” she said. “Indeed, it is more crevice than shelf, for it slopes downward.”
    “It doesn’t plunge to the center of the earth, does it?”
    “No, for I can see its back wall, but I don’t think I can pull myself up onto it.”
    “Hold onto the edge, and I’ll lift you by your feet.”
    Almost before she realized what he meant to do, his thumbs slid beneath her arches, he grasped both booted feet firmly, and then lifted her straight up so that she was able to pull herself over the ledge into the space beyond.
    No sooner had she done so than blackness swallowed them again. Gasping, she fought new terror as she squeaked, “What have you done?”
    “Hush,” he muttered. “I’ve put out the torch because I hear them coming. “Move as far back from the edge as you can, and if you can manage to slip off your cloak, we’ll use it to cover ourselves.”
    “But how will you—?”
    “Shhh.”
    Hearing then the distant thudding footsteps and murmuring voices, she scooted back from the edge. With her apprehension increasing, she strove again to calm herself, but so little success did she have that when a large hand grasped her hip, she nearly screamed. All that prevented it was a surge of terror so overwhelming that it paralyzed her vocal cords long enough for her to realize that the hand was his.
    “How did you get up here?” she muttered when at last she could speak.
    “I had ample opportunity to study the face of the wall whilst I helped you up,” he whispered back glibly.
    “You
climbed
it?”
    “Since I had no one to assist me, it seemed the only way. Doubtless the same fear that had lent me strength before lent wings to my feet then.”
    His bewildered tone made her smile, but she could still scarcely believe that he had climbed the sheer wall. She had not even heard him doing so.
    Louder voices and footsteps, nearing quickly, banished levity, and she pressed hard against the back wall of the ledge.
    “Lie flat and give me your cloak,” he whispered. “Its dark fabric should help to conceal us, but it would do us no harm to pray that this tunnel draws them on for a mile or so before it ends.”
    “Don’t be a noddy,” she retorted. “I’m already praying that the earth will open up and swallow every one of them.”
    “The Fates won’t be so kind. Now hush, mistress, and keep very still.”
    A heartbeat later, he had stretched out beside her, very close beside her, touching her, in