"I will try," said Elma.
"I will go first," he said. "You had better hold on to my coat, I think. That will leave my hands free to pull us up."
Very slowly and laboriously they clambered back again to the road above; there was no sign of the jampannis, and the jampan itself had gone over the kudd and was no more to be seen.
They sat down exhausted on the rising bank on the other side of the road.
"How did you get here?" he asked.
"My jampan went over the side, down the precipice," said Elma, "and I am afraid those poor jampannis must have been killed."
The stranger laughed long and loud, and Elma, in the reaction of her relief, laughed too.
"I have not the slightest idea what you are laughing at," she said.
"You have not been long in this country?" he asked.
"Why?"