. Platform echoes: or, Living truths for head and heart . own weakness, —wrestling sometimesfor life, with the serpent twining about his body, twisting-round his throat, glaring in his eyes with its green orbs, andlicking his lips with its forked fiery tongue. He struggleshard, and comes out of the conflict defeated. On the island of Hoy, in the Orkneys, the inhabitants earn 228 A Til KILLING STOKY a precarious livelihood by robbing the birds of their sret at their nests, men are let down by a rope from acliffone thousand leetin height, and whenthey are down per-haps live hundred feet,
. Platform echoes: or, Living truths for head and heart . own weakness, —wrestling sometimesfor life, with the serpent twining about his body, twisting-round his throat, glaring in his eyes with its green orbs, andlicking his lips with its forked fiery tongue. He struggleshard, and comes out of the conflict defeated. On the island of Hoy, in the Orkneys, the inhabitants earn 228 A Til KILLING STOKY a precarious livelihood by robbing the birds of their sret at their nests, men are let down by a rope from acliffone thousand leetin height, and whenthey are down per-haps live hundred feet,the men at the topmake the end of therope fast. Each manhas a signal , as they hangout elear of thecliff, they, with aswinging motion, $|work t hemselvestoward it. By andby they catch holdof some jagged rockor a root or shrub,and there they hangin mid-air, and ii 11hags with the eggsof the birds. One man, sus-pended thus betweenheaven and earth bya single rope, swunghimself into a ereviee,and was busy at hiswork when he wasattacked by an eagh. THE STRANDS BEGAN TO SNAP. The eagle came at him with fullforce, with wings and beak and talons. The man swungout into the air, while the eagle battered him with its wings THE BOTTOMLESS GULF. 220 and tore at him with its beak and claws. Holding on withone hand, the man, with his other hand, drew his long,sharp knife, and made a desperate blow at the eagle ; but hemissed the bird and cut through the rope by which he wassuspended, all but a few strands, and these began rapidly tountwist and the threads to snap. He made the signal, washauled up to the edge of the cliff, and—just saved. Butthey told us his hair had become white during that awfulexperience. There arc young men hanging over the bottomless gulf bya single cord. It is all that binds them to life, home, hap-piness, and heaven; it is all that holds them. Instead ofmaking the signal to be hauled up to the edge, they areusing their knives in cutting away every strand of
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjecttempera, bookyear1890
