Don had begun to coil the rope, when he suddenly paused in his task and exclaimed:
“Say, how are we going to fasten the end?”
“Fasten the end? Why, to——” Jack came to an abrupt stop, adding blankly after a moment: “Blest if I know what we can fasten it to!”
“Nor I,” Don acknowledged, as much taken aback as his companion by the appalling nature of this discovery. “There are the palms, of course, and the temple; but they're too far from the cliff to be of any use. The rope will hardly reach as it is, I'm afraid.”
“Oh, there must be some way of securing it,” replied Jack incredulously, “Surely there's a crack or something we can wedge one of the cutlasses into. Let's look, anyhow!”
Look they did, but not with the result Jack had so confidently anticipated. From side to side, from end to end of the Rock, they searched and searched again, even going down on their hands and knees that they might perchance feel what had escaped the eye, But without avail. So far as the moonlight enabled them to discern—and it made the place nearly as light as day—neither crack nor projection marred the smooth surface of the stone. They gave it up at length, utterly disheartened. Even Jack felt this to be the last straw, and abandoned himself to despair.
“It's a bad job altogether,” was the despondent comment with which he threw himself down beside the apparently useless coil of rope. “God help us, we haven't a ghost of a chance left!”
“Oh, things aren't quite so bad as that!” replied his companion, with an assumption of hopefulness he was far from feeling. “Who can say what may turn up? The darkest hour is just before the dawn, you know.”
“But,” said Jack, “suppose there isn't any dawn, what then?”