If you do, I have my consolation in the fact that my little one
cannot make me love _her_ less."
Thus ended the manuscript, signed with my uncle's name and address in
full, and directed to me at the bottom of the last page.
CHAPTER XXXV.
UNCLE EDMUND'S APPENDIX.
When my uncle Edward had told his story, corresponding, though more
conversational in form, with that I have now transcribed, my uncle Edmund
took up his part of the tale from the moment when he came to himself
after their fearful rush down the river. It was to this effect:
He lay on the very verge of the hideous void. How it was that he got thus
far and no farther, he never could think. He was out of the central
channel, and the water that ran all about him and poured immediately over
the edge of the precipice, could not have sufficed to roll him there.
Finding himself on his back, and trying to turn on his side in order to
rise, his elbow found no support, and lifting his head a little, he
looked down into a moon-pervaded abyss, where thin silvery vapours were
stealing about. One turn, and he would have been on his way, plumb-down,
to the valley below--say, rather, on his way off the face of the world
into the vast that bosoms the stars and the systems and the cloudy
worlds. His very soul quivered with terror. The pang of it was so keen
that it saved him from the swoon in which he might yet have dropped from
the edge of the world.
Pages:
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240