Then came Bickley with the air of the virtuous hero of a romance walking a pirate's plank, and also sat down.

Only Bastin hesitated until the stone began to move away.

Then with an ejaculation of "Here goes!" he jumped over the intervening crack of space and landed in the middle of us like a sack of coal.

Had I not been seated really I think he would have knocked me off the rock.

As it was, with one hand he gripped me by the beard and with the other grasped Yva's robe, of neither of which would he leave go for quite a long time, although we forced him on to his face.