"Lancy grabbed my shoulder.

"'Quick! For your life!'

"I didn't need any urging; but I was stiff and slightly dizzy from
the fumes, and it took me several seconds to get to my feet on the
beam. Unfortunately, too, I crushed three or four bees that Were
crawling stupidly on the steel.

"Then it seemed as if the whole swarm struck me at once. The
sulphur may have half-stupefied them, but they hadn't forgotten how
to sting.

"I'll never forget my walk along that narrow beam to the bank. The
bees were all over me in a moment. My hands and face felt as if
they were being punctured with red-hot splinters. Before I'd gone
ten steps my eyes were closed so tight I couldn't see.

"I'd have gone off the beam head first if it hadn't been for Lancy.
He had on gloves, and mosquito-netting over his head. But they
crawled up his sleeves and down his neck, and stung him bad. Yet he
didn't falter. With one hand stretched back and grasping mine, he
walked cool and straight for the bank, as if he'd been on solid
ground, instead of two hundred feet in the air.

"Blind and almost crazy from the stings, I stumbled along behind
him. Every step was agony. I was almost tempted to jump from the
beam and go down to be crushed to pulp on the boulders. The only
thing that saved me was Lancy's hand, cool, firm and strong.