“Pheugh! that’s something of a job!” cried Sellon, panting with the exertion of the descent. “Something of a job, with all this gear to carry as well. I could have sworn once the whole thing was giving way with me. I say, couldn’t we leave our shooting irons here, and pick them up on the way back?”
“H’m! Better not. Never get a yard away from your arms in an enemy’s country!”
The reply was unpleasantly suggestive. To Sellon it recalled all his former apprehensions. What a trap they would be in, by the way, in the event of a hostile appearance on the scene.
“You’re right,” he said. “Let’s get on.”
The second crowbar was driven in. This time they had some difficulty in fixing it. The turf covering the ledge was only a few inches thick. Then came the hard rock. At length a crevice was struck, and the staunch iron firmly wedged to within a few inches of its head.
“Our string is more than long enough,” said Renshaw, flinging the raw-hide rope down the face of the rock. The end trailed on the ground more than a dozen feet. “This krantz is on a greater slant than the smaller one. Don’t throw more of your weight on the reim than you can help. More climbing than hanging, you understand. I’ll go down first.”
Slant or no slant, however, this descent was a ticklish business. To find yourself hanging by a single rope against the smooth face of a precipice with a fifty-foot drop or so beneath is not a delightful sensation, whatever way you look at it. The crowbar might give. There might be a flaw in the iron—all sorts of things might happen. Besides, to go down a sixty-foot rope almost hand under hand is something of a feat even for a man in good training. However, taking advantage of every excrescence in the rock likely to afford passing foothold, Renshaw accomplished the descent in safety.
Then came Sellon’s turn. Of powerful and athletic build, he was a heavy man, and in no particular training withal. It was a serious ordeal for him, and once launched in mid-air the chances were about even in favour of a quicker and more disastrous descent than either cared to think of. The rope jammed his unwary knuckles against the hard rock, excoriating them and causing him most excruciating agony, nearly forcing him to let go in his pain and bewilderment. The instinct of self-preservation prevailed, however, and eventually he landed safely beside his companion—where the first thing he did on recovering his breath was to break forth into a tremendous imprecation. Then, forgetting his pain and exertion, he, following the latter’s example, glanced round curiously and a little awed, upon the remarkable place wherein they found themselves—a place whose soil had probably never before been trodden by human foot.
And the situation had its awesome side. The great rock walls sheering up around had shut in this place for ages and ages, even from the degraded and superstitious barbarians whose fears invested it and its guardian Eye with all the terrors of the dread unknown. While the history of civilisation—possibly of the world itself—was in its infancy, this gulf had yawned there unexplored, and now they two were the first to tread its virgin soil. The man who could accept such a situation without some feeling of awe must be strangely devoid of imagination—strangely deficient in ideas.