"I'll have a try," said Forrester. "Get up again, Mac."
Once more Mackenzie stood on the shikari's shoulders, and Forrester clambered up as Jackson had done. Forewarned, he did not start back and upset the balance when he touched the top of the shutter; but he removed his fingers from it quickly, and called out that it was certainly very hot--too hot to grasp while he hauled himself over. He slid down, Mackenzie leapt to the ground, and they looked at one another in a sort of despair.
"Can't we blow down the shutter with our cartridges?" Forrester at length suggested.
"We might not succeed, and, anyway, it would be a loss of ammunition we may badly need before long," replied Mackenzie.
"What in the world are we to do?" muttered Jackson, peering about him anxiously.
"The fact is----" Forrester was beginning; but at this moment they were all startled, and yet relieved, at hearing a human cry from above them.
"Who's that?" Mackenzie called, lifting a lighted match above his head. For a moment they searched the face of the rock in vain; but then the light struck dimly upon a head, projecting, as it were, out of the solid wall thirty feet above them. They could distinguish neither shape nor feature, but before the match went out they saw a second head projecting, like a gargoyle from a Gothic wall, close beside the first.
"Who's that?" Mackenzie called again.
"Gentlemen!"
The word floated down eerily; it was as though a gargoyle were speaking; and the voice was that of the younger Chinaman whom they knew--high pitched, yet low in tone, hardly more than a whisper.