in--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