“Not tall enough, Sahib,” rejoined the shikarree.
“We can splice them,” continued Caspar.
Ossaroo shook his head, but said nothing in reply.
The idea, however, had begotten new hopes; and all three walked down the ravine with brisker steps. They scanned the cliffs on either side as they advanced, but these they had examined before.
Treading with caution they approached the edge of the crevasse. They looked across. A hundred feet wide—perhaps more than a hundred feet—yawned that fearful gulf. They knelt down and gazed into the chasm. It opened far away into the earth—hundreds of feet below where they knelt. It narrowed towards the bottom. They could see the crystal cliffs, blue at the top, grow greener and darker as they converged towards each other. They could see huge boulders of rock and masses of icy snow wedged between them, and could hear far below the roaring of water. A torrent ran there—no doubt the superfluous waters of the lake escaping by this subglacial stream.
A sublime, but terrible sight it was; and although the nerves of all were strung to an extreme degree, it made them giddy to look into the chasm, and horrid feelings came over them as they listened to the unnatural echoes of their voices. To have descended to the bottom would have been a dread peril: but they did not contemplate such an enterprise. They knew that such a proceeding would be of no use, even could they have accomplished it. Once in the bottom of the chasm the opposite steep would still have to be climbed, and this was plainly an impossibility. They thought not of crossing in that way—their only hope lay in the possibility of bridging the crevasse; and to this their whole attention was now turned.
Such a project might appear absurd. Men of weaker minds would have turned away from it in despair; and so, too, might they have done, but for the hopelessness of all other means of escape. It was now life or death with them—at all events, it was freedom or captivity.
To give up all hope of returning to their homes and friends—to spend the remainder of their lives in this wild fastness—was a thought almost as painful as the prospect of death itself.
It was maddening to entertain such a thought, and as yet not one of them could bring himself to dwell upon the reality of so terrible a destiny. But the fact that such in reality would be their fate, unless they could discover some mode of escaping from their perilous situation, sharpened all their wits; and every plan was brought forward and discussed with the most serious earnestness.
As they stood gazing across that yawning gulf, the conviction entered their minds that it was possible to bridge it.