The experiment was tried next day. A bucket, loaded with stones heavy enough to sink it, was lowered down the black-looking pit, and was drawn up again nearly full of water. This was given to the nearest grazing animals, and the bucket sent down again, to catch against some projecting block and tilt out the ballast, after which it refused to sink, but made a jerk or two to escape, and then had to be drawn out.
Fresh stones were put in the bottom, and again were tilted out, but the result of another trial from a little different spot resulted in the vessel’s coming up full.
More trying resulted in the adventurers finding that they could depend upon obtaining about five bucketfuls out of a dozen trials, and with this they were content.
An attempt to reach the first terrace was now made, and this did not prove to be so difficult as it appeared from below, Chris finding a spot where the rock-face was a good deal broken away and proposing to try and climb it.
The doctor hesitated.
“What about the snakes?” he said.
Chris started, looked up, and then looked down, to see that Ned’s eyes were fixed upon him, and he turned red.
“A snake couldn’t climb up there!” he said sharply.
“No,” said his father, “I should doubt whether one could; but there is every probability that one or many might have come down from above.”
“Bother!” exclaimed the boy, and he hesitated for a few moments before saying, “If one did fall, or come creeping down one of those great cracks, perhaps, it wouldn’t stop there. Snakes want something to eat, and there doesn’t seem to be anything to live on up there. Wouldn’t it come down lower, after all?”