With the bright sky above, and the free air of heaven all around them, they were as effectually hemmed in as when that bristling array of pikes forced them back to the blank wall. The jaws of the trap were a little wider; the effects of its deadly grip a little delayed—that was all.
To add to the horrors of their position, absolute starvation stared them in the face in the event of a prolonged siege. Since early morning they had eaten nothing, and the day was now far advanced; they had brought no food with them, and none was procurable here. A small temple crowned the Rock; but when they penetrated it in the hope of finding fruit or other edible offerings, its dustladen shrine spoke only too plainly of long disuse. Even the thin clusters of dates upon the few palms that eked out a stunted existence in a shallow depression of the Rock were acrid, shrivelled, and wholly unfit for food. The pit, it is true, contained water; but this, even had it been drinkable, lay hopelessly beyond their reach.
“No powder, no grub, no drink; it's a pretty, pickle to be in, anyhow,” said Jack, ruefully summing up these calamitous discoveries as they rejoined the blacks at the head of the stairs. “And, by Jove!” pointing down the steps, “they've gone and doubled the guard.”
“The waters the worst,” he presently resumed, scanning the arid expanse of rock thirstily. “We could hold out for days, if we only had a supply of that. As it is, I don't dare think what this place will be like under a midday sun—ugh!”
“All the more reason we should leave it, then,” said Don.
“How?”
Don was silent. The question did not seem to admit of an answer.
“Now, see here, old' fellow,” said Jack; “I admit, of course, that U.P. is written large all over the face of things just now; but at the same time it strikes me there's more than one way of getting off our white elephant's back.”
“There's only the tunnel to the creek,” said Don, “and that's not going to help us much while it's chock-full of natives, and we have no powder.”
“Then why not go over the cliff?” demanded Jack.