THE GOD-MAN The Life, Journeys and Work of Meher Baba with an ...

120 THE GOD-MANtip for earth and rubbish, it provided a very insecure footing, and fifteen feet up it was blocked bya very large boulder, so smooth that it offered neither foothold nor grips for the hand. It seemedthe only possible way out.Baba, wiry, lightly-built, and nimble, climbed first, scattering a little earth behind him. Heclapped his hands as a signal for us to follow and disappeared from view. S. followed, but stuckon the boulder for some anxious minutes, the two girls and the other youth were waiting below.Above was a very steep gully, perhaps forty feet deep, filled with loose earth, rusty bits of metal,broken glass; a foot moved meant the descent upon the girls below of stones, possibly a smallavalanche of rubbish and earth. A final wriggle and S. got past the boulder. By hanging on to theroots of bushes he could crouch on the loose earth, but he could not manage the remaining fortyfeet. Baba had completely disappeared. The youth who weighed five stone or less came next, aslight hand grip, and he was past the boulder.Baba's last signal had been 'Come up'. S. told Vivienne to follow on. She stuck on the boulder,her strength slowly ebbed. We shouted for help to Baba, and heard no response. Had he left us inthe lurch? Was it a test? or had he relied on S. to see the girls through the difficult place? S.thought of heroic things he ought to do but could not do. He himself was gradually slippingdownwards. Any desperate move meant a torrent of earth into V's face. She hung suspendedthere for ten or fifteen minutes, possibly longer; it seemed an age. Two fingers of her right handclinging to a small hole in the rock, her body in the smooth boulder, and her left knee wedged inthe rock at the side.The others had returned to the house. They were surprised that after two hours we had not yetreturned. Meanwhile, Baba had left the gully, mounted still higher up the cliff and was clappinghis hands to attract attention. We were a mile or more away from the house. No one heard him.But an Italian boy, Tino, who worked on the estate, met a priest who told him of the clapping. Heran to Baba, understood his signs to fetch ropes, and rushed back to the house kitchen. Kaka, Adi,and Pendu, who were then cooking our evening meal, left their pots burning and ran.A loosening of Vivienne's hold meant a fall of fifteen to twenty feet on top of the other girl, andthen a roll down 300 feet into the sea.S. could just touch her hand, but was unable, his right hand having to cling to a bush, toexercise sufficient force or to increase his reach, to help her up. It had been possible with theyouth, who was less than half her weight. .. At length shouts were heard from the top.