"Well, let me have all that you can spare without letting go of the end." Soon I had enough of the vine on my side of the chasm to more than reach back to Cynthia.
"Take your end round the tree," said I, "and then throw it to me." She did as I told her. At first the vine fell short of the terrace, but she bravely pulled it back to her and tried again, and finally I was rewarded by catching the end in my hand.
"Now," said I, "if you can tie those ends securely together, we shall have a sort of endless chain." She did so, I holding the loop. Then I put some food in the bag and fastened it to the vine, and we sent it over by pulling on the loop and letting the knot go round the tree. Had I slipped the handles of the bag over the vine, it would only have slid down to us again.
"I can send you some water in the same way," said I, "if the vine is strong enough."
"There are plenty of vines," said the Smith.
"Go and collect all you can find, you and the Bo's'n," said I, for a new thought had struck me.
The Bo's'n and the Smith now went to the arch of rock which covered our sleeping place and tore down from above great handfuls of the trailing creepers. Some of them were so strongly rooted that we could not move them, but many came easily away from the earth, and soon the floor of the terrace was thickly strewn with them. I stooped over the precipice and tore up all that I could reach.
"Now," said I, "we will make a bridge." I told Cynthia at once what we intended doing, and she seated herself with Lacelle, and together they watched us at our work.
I told the Bo's'n and the Smith to lay many strands of the vine on the floor and weave other vines in and out.
"Why can't we do that up here?" asked Cynthia.