unk, Holman in the lead by right of discovery, and the nimble Kaipi in
the rear. Higher and higher the youngster climbed into the thick green
foliage. He reached the topmost branches, and selecting one that led
toward the rocky wall, he straddled it and worked his way slowly
forward.

Kaipi and I clung to the fork of the limb and waited, and as I watched
Holman the wisdom of our actions was assailed by a cold doubt. We had
left the two girls entirely unprotected, and if Leith reached the camp
before we returned, and heard from the chattering Professor the story of
the finding of the scrap of paper, it would be reasonable to suppose
that he would consider the moment had arrived for the perpetration of
any deviltry he had planned.

But Holman's actions interrupted my mental criticism of the wisdom of
our plans. The youngster had reached the extreme end of the limb, and he
was clawing madly at the rock to obtain a footing. He succeeded after a
five minutes' struggle, and he sent a breathless whisper back to our
perch.

"There's a ledge here," he murmured. "I think we can climb up from it.
Hurry along, and I'll give you a hand."

I needed a hand when I reached the end of that leafy seesaw. I was much
heavier than the boy, and the limb could hardly support my weight when I
neared the end. Holman reached out his hand at a moment when I thought
that a drop through the air would be my reward for attempting aerial
exhibitions, and the next moment I was beside him on a little projection
that barely gave us a footing.

"It's easy climbing just above us," whispered Holman. "Wait till we get
Kaipi."

The Fijian came along the limb with the agility of a trapeze artist, and
when he reached the ledge we stared up at the dizzy heights that rose
above our little resting place. Small jutting projections, like
gargoyles, stuck out from the wall, and we looked at them hungrily.

"If we had only brought the rope!" cried the boy. "Say, Verslun, put
your face against the rock and I'll climb on to your shoulders."

I did so, and the youngster climbed up cautiously. For a long time he
stood there, peering around in an effort to discover a path by which we
could go upward and onward, but at last he stepped off, and I looked up
to find him clinging to the wall like a huge beetle. A pack of fat
clouds that had harried the moon during the earlier part of the evening
now closed in upon her, and we were in complete darkness. The threshing
li