“I say, Mas’ Don, I thought I was gone.”
“You made my heart seem to jump into my mouth.”
“Did I, lad? Well, it was awk’ard. I was scared lest I should knock you off. Felt just as I did when the chain broke, and you could see the link opening, and a big sugar-hogshead threatening to come down. All right now, my lad. Let’s get on down. Think we’re birds’ nesting, Mas’ Don, and it’ll be all right.”
Don had to nerve himself once more, and they steadily lowered themselves from tuft to tuft, and from stone to stone, with more confidence, till they were about thirty feet from the foot, when farther progress became impossible, for, in place of being perpendicular, the cliff face sloped inward for some distance before becoming perpendicular once more.
“Well, I do call that stoopid,” said Jem, as he stared helplessly at Don. “What are we going to do now?”
“I don’t know, Jem. If we had a bit of rope we could easily descend.”
“And if we’d got wings, Mas’ Don, we might fly.”
“We must climb back, Jem, as— Look here, would these trees bear us?”
“Not likely,” said Jem, staring hard at a couple of young kauri pines, which grew up at the foot of the precipice, and whose fine pointed tops were within a few feet of where they clung.
“But if we could reach them and get fast hold, they would bend and let us down.”