“He’s here somewhere,” the boy said to himself, “but the thing is where.”
He was not long coming to the conclusion that the convict had devoted himself during his shepherding tours to hunting out some place where he could descend the terrible precipice into that glorious valley far below, where there were sheep and cattle, plenty of water, and no doubt wild fruits to enable him to subsist.
“And if he found his way down, why shouldn’t I?” said Nic, with a little laugh. Then, shouldering his gun, he dived in among the trees and wattle scrub which lay between him and the edge of the precipice, with the intention of keeping cautiously along it, first in one direction and then in the other, till he found traces of some one having climbed down.
Two hours’ work convinced him that he had undertaken a task that might have made Hercules sit down and scratch his ear, for it promised to be hard enough to equal any of the celebrated labours of that mythic personage. Nic had toiled on in one direction only, forcing his way through thorns, tangles, and over and between rocks, pausing from time to time, whenever he came to an opening, to gaze across the tremendous gap at the glories of the rock wall opposite, or to look shuddering down into the beautiful paradise thousands of feet below, where the tints of green were of the loveliest hues, and he could see the cattle calmly grazing, mere dots in the natural meads which bordered the flashing waters seen here and there like lakes, but joined possibly, for the trees shut out broad stretches of the river in the vale.
For a time he would lie there, resting and listening to the whistling calls of birds whose names he did not know, to the shrieks of parrots, and now and then catch sight of what seemed to be tiny fragments of paper falling fluttering down, till he saw them turn, and knew that he was gazing at cockatoos.
Then, after yielding to the fascination of peering down into the awful depth, he would turn suddenly away, for a cold chill would run through him as he experienced the sensation as of something drawing him downward, and he would creep yards distant and sit there wiping the perspiration from his face.
He soon recovered, though, and once more continued his search for a way down.
“It is as if it would take years,” he said to himself; “but I don’t care, I shall come again and again and keep on trying. I will find it,” he said half aloud, as he set his teeth in dogged determination, and for another hour he struggled on, till, feeling utterly exhausted, he seated himself at the edge of the precipice at a point where he could divide the bushes and look down. Here, only a few yards away, he saw that there was a broad shelf some fifty feet below, and along it a mere thread of water trickled to a lower edge and disappeared, leaving among the stones amidst which it had meandered patch after patch of richest green, showing its fertilising power.
That water was tempting in the extreme, for his mouth was dry; he was faint, and he knew by the position of the sun that he had been struggling through the dense growth for hours without refreshing himself, though all the time he had a cake of damper in his pocket, keeping the powder-flask company.
If he could get down there, he thought, he might have half an hour’s rest, and then tramp back to where he had left Sorrel, and ride gently home in the cool of the evening.