"How?" I questioned, as I strove to discern a way of escape from the scanty foothold of the rock-ledge.
"I will show you," she answered. "This is a secret path of the priests. Wiki used it when he went into the desert to commune with Massi. But it is very dangerous, and you who are not accustomed to climbing the rocks will have to go slowly. That is why I say the fat one did well to overthrow the ladder. Before they dare to set it up again we shall be able to climb beyond their reach."
She took Tawannears by the hand. He led me, and Peter brought up the rear, and we edged cautiously along the shelf, blessed by our blindness in that we could not see how perilously near eternity we walked. Some twenty feet from where the ladder had rested the ledge terminated in a series of foot- and hand-holds ascending a slope, and these we climbed by touch. In that pitch darkness 'twas impossible for one to see the others ahead of him. But we hurried, for behind us we heard the ladder creaking back into place.
The third stage of the path was another ledge, which carried us into a remarkable crevice in the face of the cliff, a kind of natural chimney, evidently a fault in the rock structure caused by some bygone disturbance of the earth's surface. In the crevice it was darker than it had been outside, if that was possible; but the footing was more secure, and we were spurred on by the sounds of our pursuers, better accustomed to such work than we and consequently making twice as rapid progress.
The path was made easier by occasional foot-rests chopped by the priests and by ladder-rungs braced in holes. It trended at first directly into the heart of the cliff, then turned at right angles and ascended diagonally, following a layer of soft rock which I could readily identify with my hands. In two places it was so steep as to demand progress by means of straddling. Atop of the first of these funnels it widened to become a chamber littered with rock fragments, and a beam of moonlight filtered into the somber place revealed a jagged crack along the side toward the valley.
Peter, following me up the second funnel, muttered he could see one of the priests climbing the slant of the path to its beginning, and in my energy to make way for him I deluged him with pebbles and fine gravel. This upper end of the crevice was very brittle, perhaps because it had been long baked in the heat of the sun, and we slipped and slid continually, losing a foot for every yard we scaled. But at last Kachina achieved the top, and helped Tawannears up, and betwixt them, they hauled up Peter and me.
To our surprise, we discovered ourselves to be on the summit of the cliff. Homolobi, of course, was hidden beneath the protuberance of rock that ran eastward many feet from where we stood. Beyond it, though, we could see the full sweep of the valley, dotted with the fires of the Awataba, the silver glitter of the moonlight on the river and the opposite wall of cliffs. The night was very bright and clear, the sky gemmed with a myriad stars, the moon shining full between draperies of purple velvet.
"What now!" I asked.
Kachina shook her head.
"We must keep back the priests from following us," she said. "If we left the path they would soon be close to us again."