below," pronounced Renshaw, as he surveyed the summit which they
were now very near. "We shall have to make a cast round to the left and
look for a gully. The horses will never be able to climb over these
rocks."

The said rocks lay strewn thickly around; remnants of a cliff at one
time guarding this side of the summit, but which in past ages must have
fallen away into fragments. From below they had seemed mere pebbles.

"Right you are," acquiesced Sellon, "Lead on."

A detour of a couple of hundred yards and they rounded the spur, which
had ended abruptly in a precipice. They were now on the western angle
of the mountain. Immediately above rose a lofty wall of rock, the
nearer end of the cock's-comb ridge. It continued in unbroken fall some
hundreds of feet from where they stood. They had reached the extremity
of the slope, and halting for a moment paused in admiration of the
stately grandeur of the great cliff sweeping down into giddy depths.

"Let's take a look over," said Maurice, advancing cautiously to the
angle formed by the projection whereon they stood, and lying flat to
peer over the brink.

"Yes; only be careful," warned his companion.

As he peered over there was a "flap--flap--flap" echoing from the face
of the cliff, like so many pistol-shots, as a cloud of great aasvogels,
startled from their roosting places beneath, soared away over the abyss.
So near were the gigantic birds that the spectator could see the
glitter of their eyes.

"By Jove, but I'd like to go down and have a look at the beggars'
nests," said Sellon, trying to peer still further over the brink, but in
vain, for the aasvogel is among the most suspicious of birds, and,
wherever possible, selects his home beneath a jutting projection, and
thus out of eyeshot from above.

"They don't make any, only lay one egg apiece on the bare rock," said
Renshaw, impatiently. "But come on. Man alive, we've no time for
bird's-nesting. In half an hour it'll be dark."

The sun had gone off the lower world, though here, on high, he still
touched with a golden splendour the red burnished face of the giant
cliff. And now from their lofty elevation they were able to gaze forth
upon a scene of unsurpassable wildness and grandeur. Mountains upon
mountains, the embattled walls of a cliff-girdled summit standing in
contrast beside a smooth, hog-backed hump; here and there a lofty peak
sheering up defiant above its fellows, but everywhere a billo