be saved to us, and, throwing every ounce of my earthly muscles
into the effort, I cleared the remaining distance between myself
and the cliffs in great leaps and bounds that put me at their base
in a moment.

The cliffs rose perpendicular directly from the almost level sward
of the valley. There was no accumulation of fallen debris, forming
a more or less rough ascent to them, as is the case with nearly
all other cliffs I have ever seen. The scattered boulders that had
fallen from above and lay upon or partly buried in the turf, were
the only indication that any disintegration of the massive, towering
pile of rocks ever had taken place.

My first cursory inspection of the face of the cliffs filled my
heart with forebodings, since nowhere could I discern, except where
the weird herald stood still shrieking his shrill summons, the
faintest indication of even a bare foothold upon the lofty escarpment.

To my right the bottom of the cliff was lost in the dense foliage
of the forest, which terminated at its very foot, rearing its gorgeous
foliage fully a thousand feet against its stern and forbidding
neighbour.

To the left the cliff ran, apparently unbroken, across the head of
the broad valley, to be lost in the outlines of what appeared to
be a range of mighty mountains that skirted and confined the valley
in every direction.

Perhaps a thousand feet from me the river broke, as it seemed,
directly from the base of the cliffs, and as there seemed not the