at very day of the side of the kloof upon which they
now stood had been much too complete to admit of their believing that
the men who had just passed them had been all the time lying hid, and
the inference naturally was that these strange people had some peculiar
method of crossing the gorge at its upper edge. Such an apparently
preposterous idea had, of course, not occurred to the pair when
searching the wood, but had the path been at all easy to find they would
most certainly have stumbled across it.

Moving quietly along the back track, the pair cautiously examined every
likely spot, and were about to enter a particularly black-looking clump
of bush, when they were suddenly brought to a standstill by the gruff
challenge of a colossal-looking sentry, who started out from the dark
background of wood and threateningly raised his rifle.

"Halt! halt! and give the password!"

Leigh's hand stole towards his revolver; but men think rapidly in
emergencies like this, and in a moment of inspiration, Kenyon coolly
answered, "_Zero_!"

"_Pass, Zero, and all's well_," grunted the gigantic sentinel, grounding
his arms with a clash, and then, in a theatrical whisper as the pair
approached him, "Mates, you haven't got a drink on you, have you? It's
main cold up here."

Quickly Leigh held out his flask, and as the other was in the very act
of drinking, Kenyon flew at his throat like a cat, and choked him down,
whilst Leigh knelt on his chest, and tried to bind him. Our friends
were both exceptionally powerful men, but this fellow was a regular bull
of Bashan, and it was only after a low whistle had summoned one of their
native guides that the trio got the sentry bound and gagged to their
satisfaction. Next, sending the black fellow to keep watch at the top
of the zig-zag, the pair set to to thoroughly explore the tangled path
which had been guarded by the sentry. A most unpleasant task this was,
too, feeling their way about on the very verge of an immense precipice,
thickly clothed with trees and bush, through which the rays of the moon
cast at intervals a sickly glamour of feeble light and heavy shade.

At last a brief exclamation from Leigh announced a discovery, and
standing by his side, and looking directly across the chasm, Kenyon saw
a curious, and in its way, a striking spectacle. From one side of the
kloof to the other stretched the taut strands of a mighty double rope or
hawser, and from this rope was suspended