"There, Meinik, look along by the side of this stone. I can see a ray of light. Yes, and some leaves. I don't think they are more than thirty feet above us!"
Meinik applied his eye to the crevice.
"I see them, master. Yes, I don't think those leaves are more than that distance away."
"That is what I came to look for," Stanley said. "It was evident that this rubbish could only be the stones of the root, and pavement over the depression in the middle of the ruin; and that these could not block up this staircase very far. The question is, will it be possible to clear them away? Evidently it will be frightfully dangerous work. One might manage to get one stone out, at a time, in safety. But at any moment, the loosening of one stone might bring a number of others down, with a run; and anyone on this narrow staircase would be swept away like a straw."
Meinik agreed as to the danger.
"Well, we need not think it over now, Meinik; but if we are really besieged, it is by this way that we must escape, if at all. We must hope that we sha'n't be beset; but if we are, we must try here. I would rather be killed, at once, by the fall of a stone on my head, than tortured to death."
Meinik nodded, and they descended the stairs, put out the torches that they had used there, and returned along the ledge to the chamber where Harry was lying.
"So Meinik scared them away," the latter said, as Stanley sat down beside him. "I could not think what he was going to do when he came up here with that long reed, as thick as my leg. He showed it to me, and I saw that it had a sort of mouthpiece fixed into it; and he made signs that he was going to blow down it. When he did, it was tremendous and, as it got louder and louder, I put my hands to my ears. Everything seemed to quiver. The other row--that diabolical laughing noise--he made with a smaller one. It was frightful; but the big note was more like a trombone, only twenty times louder.
"Well, do you think that we have done with them?"
"I hope so, Harry. At any rate, you can be assured that they will never fight their way up here and, long before our provisions are finished, I have no doubt that I shall be able to hit on some plan of escape."