There was nothing to see but the top of the wall of rock: nothing to hear but the hissing, roaring rush of the water far below.
“Come,” said Yussuf, turning his horse, and taking the lead in the descent along the path they had just reascended, down which, scrambling and slipping over the thawing ice, they crept slowly, looking in the midst of the stupendous chasm little bigger than flies.
The old lawyer trembled, while the professor’s cheeks looked sunken, his eyes hollow. No one spoke, and as they went on, the crunching of the half-melted hailstones and the click of the horses’ hoofs against the loosened stones sounded loudly in the clear air.
It was a perilous descent, for the horses were constantly slipping; but at last the bottom of the defile was reached, and the steeds being left in charge of Hamed, Yussuf turned sharply to the right, closely followed by Mr Preston and Mr Burne, to climb along the steep stone-burdened slope, where the flooded mountain torrent was just beneath them and threatening to sweep them away.
Yussuf turned from time to time to look at his companions, half expecting that they would not follow, for the way he took was extremely perilous, and he fully expected to see Mr Preston give up in despair. But, experienced as he was in the ways of Englishmen, he did not quite understand their nature, for not only was the professor toiling on over the mossy stones just behind him, but Mr Burne, with his face glistening in perspiration and a set look of determination in his features, was clambering up and sliding down with unwonted agility, but with a piteous look in his eyes which told how painfully he felt the position in which they were placed.
No one spoke, every effort being needed for the toilsome task, as they clambered along, now down in narrow rifts, now dragging themselves painfully over the rugged masses of rock which lay as they had fallen from the side of the defile, a couple of thousand feet above them. The scene would have appeared magnificent at another time; the colours of the rocks, the tufts of verdant bushes, the gloriously-mossed stones, the patches of white hail, and the glancing, rushing, and gleaming torrent, which was here deep and dark, there one sheet of white effervescing foam. But the hearts of all were too full, and their imaginations were painting the spectacle upon which they soon expected to gaze, namely, the terribly mutilated body of poor Lawrence, battered by his fall out of recognition.
One moment Mr Preston was asking himself how he could make arrangements for taking the remains of the poor lad home. At another he was thinking that it would be impossible, and that he must leave him sleeping in this far-off land. While, again, the course of his thoughts changed, and he found himself believing that poor Lawrence would have fallen and rolled on, and then, in company with the avalanche of loose stones set in motion by his horse’s hoof’s, have been plunged into the furious torrent, and been borne away never to be seen again.
A curious dimness came over the professor’s eyes, as he paused for a moment or two upon the top of a rock, to gaze before him. But there was nothing visible, for the defile at the bottom curved and zigzagged so that they could not see thirty yards before them, and where it was most straight the abundant foliage of the trees growing out of the cliffs rendered seeing difficult.
“It must have been somewhere here, effendi,” said Yussuf at last, pausing for the others to overtake him, and pointing upwards. “Let us separate now, and search about. You, Mr Burne, keep close down by the river; you, Mr Preston, go forward here; and I will climb up—it is more difficult—and search there. I will shout if I have anything to say.”
The professor looked up to find that he was at the foot of a mass of rock, high up on whose side there seemed to be a ledge, and then another steep ascent, broken by shelves of rock and masses which seemed to be ready to crumble down upon their heads.