In vain: the ground was broken and stony, but there grew not there so much as a bush of furze.
'Now then,' thought I to myself, 'here begins a new lesson, and I believe it will prove richer than the first.

I am not strong enough to keep this rope extended.

If I do not keep it extended the next man will be dashed against the precipice.

There is no reason why he should have my extravagant good luck.

I see no reason why he should not fall--nor any place for him to fall on but my head.' From where I was now standing there was occasionally visible, as the fog lightened, a lamp in one of the barrack windows, which gave me a measure of the height he had to fall and the horrid force that he must strike me with.