boulder-studded passage which led through the haunted defile into
Kaffirland. The moon, rising above the crags, threw into strong relief
the rough, irregular pinnacles of rock by which they were topped, while
all below was dark as Erebus.

"The Sasassa Valley?" said I.

"Yes," said Tom.

I looked at him. He was calm now; the flush and feverishness had passed
away; his actions were deliberate and slow. Yet there was a certain
rigidity in his face and glitter in his eye which showed that a crisis
had come.

We entered the pass, stumbling along amid the great boulders. Suddenly I
heard a short, quick exclamation from Tom. "That's the crag!" he cried,
pointing to a great mass looming before us in the darkness. "Now, Jack,
for any favour use your eyes! We're about a hundred yards from that
cliff, I take it; so you move slowly toward one side and I'll do the
same toward the other. When you see anything, stop and call out. Don't
take more than twelve inches in a step, and keep your eye fixed on the
cliff about eight feet from the ground. Are you ready?"

"Yes." I was even more excited than Tom by this time. What his intention
or object was I could not conjecture, beyond that he wanted to examine
by daylight the part of the cliff from which the light came. Yet the
influence of the romantic situation and my companion's suppressed
excitement was so great that I could feel the blood coursing through my
veins and count the pulses throbbing at my temples.