Chapter 4: Our Venture
We were standing on a narrow, irregular, all too slanting little
ledge, and should doubtless have ignominiously slipped off and
broken our rash necks but for the vine. This was a thick-leaved, wide-spreading thing, a little like Amphelopsis.
"It's not QUITE vertical here, you see," said Terry, full of pride
and enthusiasm. "This thing never would hold our direct weight, but I think if we sort of slide down on it, one at a time, sticking in with hands and feet, we'll reach that next ledge alive."
"As we do not wish to get up our rope again--and can't
comfortably stay here--I approve," said Jeff solemnly.
Terry slid down first--said he'd show us how a Christian
meets his death. Luck was with us. We had put on the thickest
of those intermediate suits, leaving our tunics behind, and made
this scramble quite successfully, though I got a pretty heavy fall
just at the end, and was only kept on the second ledge by main
force. The next stage was down a sort of "chimney"--a long
irregular fissure; and so with scratches many and painful and
bruises not a few, we finally reached the stream.
It was darker there, but we felt it highly necessary to put as
much distance as possible behind us; so we waded, jumped, and
clambered down that rocky riverbed, in the flickering black and
white moonlight and leaf shadow, till growing daylight forced a halt.
We found a friendly nut-tree, those large, satisfying, soft-
shelled nuts we already knew so well, and filled our pockets.
I see that I have not remarked that these women had pockets
in surprising number and variety. They were in all their garments, and the middle one in particular was shingled with them. So we stocked up with nuts till we bulged like Prussian privates in marching order, drank all we could hold, and retired for the day.
It was not a very comfortable place, not at all easy to get at, just a sort of crevice high up along the steep bank, but it was well veiled with foliage and dry. After our exhaustive three- or four- hour scramble and the good breakfast food, we all lay down along that crack--heads and tails, as it were--and slept till the afternoon sun almost toasted our faces.
Terry poked a tentative foot against my head.
"How are you, Van? Alive yet?"
"Very much so," I told him. And Jeff was equally cheerful.
We had room to stretch, if not to turn around; but we could very
carefully roll over, one at a time, behind the sheltering foliage.
It was no use to leave there by daylight. We could not see
much of the country, but enough to know that we were now at
the beginning of the cultivated area, and no doubt there would
be an alarm sent out far and wide.
Terry chuckled softly to himself, lying there on that hot
narrow little rim of rock. He dilated on the discomfiture of our
guards and tutors, making many discourteous remarks.
I reminded him that we had still a long way to go before getting
to the place where we'd left our machine, and no probability of finding
it there; but he only kicked me, mildly, for a croaker.
"If you can't boost, don't knock," he protested. "I never said
'twould be a picnic. But I'd run away in the Antarctic ice fields
rather than be a prisoner."
We soon dozed off again.
The long rest and penetrating dry heat were good for us, and
that night we covered a considerable distance, keeping always in
the rough forested belt of land which we knew bordered the
whole country. Sometimes we were near the outer edge, and
caught sudden glimpses of the tremendous depths beyond.
"This piece of geography stands up like a basalt column," Jeff
said. "Nice time we'll have getting down if they have confiscated
our machine!" For which suggestion he received summary chastisement.
What we could see inland was peaceable enough, but only
moonlit glimpses; by daylight we lay very close. As Terry said, we did not wish to kill the old ladies--even if we could; and short of that they were perfectly competent to pick us up bodily and carry us back, if discovered. There was nothing for it but to lie low, and sneak out unseen if we could do it.