The part of the cliff where these terraces were found was not quite so low, as that where Karl had made his measurement. It did not appear, however, to be more than three hundred and fifty feet—a fearful height, it is true—but nothing when compared with other sections of the same precipice. To reach to its top, more than a dozen ladders would be required—each between twenty and thirty feet in length. The labour of making these ladders, with such tools as they had, might be looked upon as something stupendous—sufficient, you might suppose, to deter them from the task. But you must endeavour to realise the situation in which they were placed—with no other hope of being delivered from their mountain prison—and with this idea in your mind, you will comprehend why they should have been willing to undertake even a far greater labour. Of course, they did not expect to complete it in a day, neither in a week, nor in a month: for they well knew that it would take several months to make the number of ladders that would be required. And then there would be the additional labour of getting each into its place: as all, after the first one, would have to be carried up the cliff to the ledge for which it should be constructed. Indeed, to raise ladders of thirty feet in the manner contemplated, would seem an impossibility—that is, for such strength or mechanism as they could command.
And so it might have proved, had they intended to make these ladders of the ordinary weight. But they foresaw this difficulty, and hoped to get over it by making them of the very lightest kind—something that would just carry the weight of a man.
Becoming more than half satisfied that at this point the precipice might be scaled in the manner contemplated, they remained upon the ground in order to give it a thorough examination. That done, they intended to make the complete circuit of the valley, and ascertain whether there might not be some other place still easier of ascent.
The point where they had halted was behind the tract of heavily-timbered forest—of which Caspar had spoken, and which up to this time none of them had entered. Between the trees and the cliff they were now contemplating, there was a narrow strip of ground destitute of timber; and covered with a shingle of loose stones which had fallen from the mountain above. Several boulders of large dimensions rested upon the ground, at short distances apart; and there was one of a pillar-shape that stood some twenty-feet high, while it was only about five or six in diameter. It bore a sort of rude resemblance to an obelisk; and one might easily have fancied that the hand of man had accomplished its erection. For all that, it was a mere freak of Nature, and had probably been set up by ancient glacier ice. Up one of its sides there was a series of projections, by which an active man might climb to the top; and Ossaroo did climb it, partly out of playfulness, and partly, as he said, to get a better view of the cliff. The shikaree stayed only a few minutes on its top; and his curiosity having been satisfied, he had let himself down again.
Chapter Nine.
A reconnoissance interrupted.
Though the three had set out that morning with a wholesome dread of the elephant, and a determination to go about their reconnoissance with caution, their joy at the discovery of the ledges, and the eagerness with which they were scanning them, had for the moment banished from their minds all thoughts of the great quadruped. They were thinking only of ledges and ladders, and talking loudly of how the latter might best be made and placed upon the former.
Just then, and just at the moment Ossaroo descended from the obelisk rock, Fritz, who had been prowling about among the trees, set up a fearful baying—such another as that to which he had given utterance on the night when the elephant had paid its visit to the hut.