So on they went up the slope till they came to the base of the third wall, and as before, passed round it, and reached a point above the river. But now there was no passage, only some shallow and almost precipitous steps cut from single stones leading from the foot of the wall to its summit, more than thirty feet above.
“Really,” said Benita, contemplating this perilous ascent with dismay, “the ways of treasure seekers are hard. I don’t think I can,” while her father also looked at them and shook his head.
“We must get a rope,” said Meyer to the Molimo angrily. “How can we climb that place without one, with such a gulf below?”
“I am old, but I climb it,” said the aged man in mild surprise, since to him, who had trodden it all his life, it seemed not difficult. “Still,” he added, “I have a rope above which I use upon dark nights. I will ascend and let it down.”
Ascend he did accordingly; indeed, it was a wondrous sight to see his withered legs scrambling from step to step as unconcernedly as though he were going upstairs. No monkey could have been more agile, or more absolutely impervious to the effects of height. Soon he vanished in—or, rather, through—the crest of the wall, and presently appeared again on the top step, whence he let down a stout hide rope, remarking that it was securely tied. So anxious was Meyer to enter the hidden place of which he had dreamed so long that he scarcely waited for it to reach his hand before he began the climb, which he accomplished safely. Then, sitting on the top of the wall, he directed Mr. Clifford to fasten the end of the rope round Benita’s waist, and her turn came.
It was not so bad as she expected, for she was agile, and the knowledge that the rope would prevent disaster gave her confidence. In a very little while she had grasped Meyer’s outstretched hand, and been drawn into safety through a kind of aperture above the top step. Then the rope was let down again for her father, who tied it about his middle. Well was it that he did so, since when he was about half-way up, awkwardness, or perhaps loss of nerve—neither of them wonderful in an old man—caused his foot to slip, and had it not been for the rope which Meyer and the Molimo held, he would certainly have fallen into the river some hundreds of feet below. As it was, he recovered himself, and presently arrived panting and very pale. In her relief Benita kissed him, and even as she did so thought again that she had been very near to being left alone with Jacob Meyer.
“All’s well that ends well, my dear,” he said. “But upon my word I am beginning to wish that I had been content with the humble profits of horse-breeding.”
Benita made no answer; it seemed too late for any useful consideration of the point.
“Clever men, those ancients,” said Meyer. “See,” and he pointed out to her how, by drawing a heavy stone which still lay close by over the aperture through which they had crept, the ascent of the wall could be made absolutely impossible to any enemy, since at its crest it was battened outwards, not inwards, as is usual in these ancient ruins.
“Yes,” she answered, “we ought to feel safe enough inside here, and that’s as well since I do not feel inclined to go out again at present.”