Availing himself, however, of the still glimmering twilight, he unhesitatingly struck into a sort of goat-track, in the opposite direction to that of our ascent, which—winding down the face of the rock—led us to the brink of a deep fissure or chasm, partly over-arched by huge masses of granite, and the “brown horrors” of whose depths our eyes could not fathom by that fast declining and uncertain light.
“There, sar! down there, big tiger, him live—look!” added he, in a whisper, as if afraid of being overheard by the grim tenant of the dark skeleton-strewed Golgotha, which yawned at our feet. “Look! them white things all bones—bullock-bones, buckra-bones, man and woman bones, children-bones, all sort bones, now plenty dark, can’t see—day-time plenty can see. I go down there with Captain M——, but then tiger never find: him gone out. Captain M——, one great Shikar gentleman; wherefore tiger him plenty afraid: him then leave house: him go away to jungle.”
Suddenly stopping short in his interesting discourse, Chiniah, raising his hand to enjoin silence, remained in a listening attitude; whilst, struck by his sudden action, we peered still more intently and in breathless silence into the depths of the abyss below.
A sort of rustling noise—as that proceeding from some large animal making its way through underwood or brambles—was evidently perceptible to us all: then through the nearly total darkness now pervading the cavernous opening below, suddenly glistened forth two round, bright, shining objects, glistening like living coals through the obscurity around—and, ere we had time to form any conjecture as to their origin or cause, an appalling roar issued forth from the yawning chasm at our feet; and so loud, so deep, and so terrific was this awful sound, that for a second it rooted us in silent horror to the spot, where we remained fixed as if suddenly stricken by an electric shock.
“Sauve qui peut,” appeared next instant to have become—not the “standing” but “running” order of the day. Chiniah, in his terror, bounded downward, like a mountain goat, from rock to rock; and, being in those days tolerably active myself, and moreover, well accustomed to range “o’er the mountain’s brow,” I followed pretty closely in his wake; for awhile losing sight and—I am ashamed to say—all recollection of my more corpulent and less agile comrade, who was apparently quite distanced in the race. Chiniah and myself had now well nigh, and without accident, succeeded in reaching the bottom of the hill, which—as may well be imagined—was effected in a considerably shorter time than that occupied in our ascent; and whilst here traversing a broad, level, and slippery slab of granite, on a very inclined plane, my feet suddenly slipping from under me, during my still rapid course, I came heavily down “by the stern,” as sailors would term it, on the hard surface of the rock.
Ere I could regain my feet, I heard immediately in my rear a sort of dull rushing sound. Making sure the tiger was now upon me, I gave myself up for lost, and mentally resigned myself to my fate—when, to my infinite relief and satisfaction, instead of being grappled by a deadly foe, the cause of alarm shot rapidly past and proved to be neither more nor less than the rotund corporation of my friend the Doctor; which—after continuing its rotatory course, with all the impetus and rapidity of a huge snow-ball or avalanche, along the steep, smooth, and slippery surface that had caused my fall—was projected over the precipitous ledge terminating the declivity, and then disappeared amidst the sound of crashing branches and opposing brambles, through a dense mass of underwood below. On regaining my feet and looking around, my first sentiment was one of gladness, to find that the enemy was nowhere to be seen; the next was a feeling of alarm at my companion’s still unknown fate.
I cautiously approached the ledge over which I had seen him disappear, and through an intervening mass of jungle and foliage I could indistinctly perceive a white object struggling some twelve or fifteen feet below, and from whence proceeded piteous sounds of suffering and lamentation. This was the Doctor; who—after having shot over the ledge of rock—had been securely lodged amidst the thorny, complex, and massive leaves of a dense bush of cactus, or prickly pear, which grew immediately below.
After a long détour, and some considerable delay, I succeeded in approaching the spot where the poor Medico sat impaled, as it were, on his prickly throne; and, with the assistance of Chiniah, succeeded at last in liberating him from so uncomfortable a position, and then conveyed him to his tent.
The reader, who may chance to know the nature of the thorns of the cactus, will be able fully to appreciate the sufferings poor Doctor Macgillivan underwent, together with the time and labor it took to extract the innumerable prickles from that most prominent and vulnerable part on which, by the laws of gravity, he had naturally lodged.