From the heel of the masonry, the rascally, breakneck precipice descended sheer among waste lands, scattered suburbs of the city, and houses in the building.

I had never the heart to look for any length of time--the thought that I must make the descent in person some dark night robbing me of breath; and, indeed, on anybody not a seaman or a steeple-jack, the mere sight of the _Devil's Elbow_ wrought like an emetic.
I don't know where the rope was got, and doubt if I much cared.

It was not that which gravelled me, but whether, now that we had it, it would serve our turn.

Its length, indeed, we made a shift to fathom out; but who was to tell us how that length compared with the way we had to go?
Day after day, there would be always some of us stolen out to the _Devil's Elbow_ and making estimates of the descent, whether by a bare guess or the dropping of stones.

A private of pioneers remembered the formula for that--or else remembered part of it and obligingly invented the remainder.