ailed on the ground
more than a dozen feet. "This krantz is on a greater slant than the
smaller one. Don't throw more of your weight on the _reim_ than you can
help. More climbing than hanging, you understand. I'll go down first."

Slant or no slant, however, this descent was a ticklish business. To
find yourself hanging by a single rope against the smooth face of a
precipice with a fifty-foot drop or so beneath is not a delightful
sensation, whatever way you look at it. The crowbar might give. There
might be a flaw in the iron--all sorts of things might happen. Besides,
to go down a sixty-foot rope almost hand under hand is something of a
feat even for a man in good training. However, taking advantage of
every excrescence in the rock likely to afford passing foothold, Renshaw
accomplished the descent in safety.

Then came Sellon's turn. Of powerful and athletic build, he was a heavy
man, and in no particular training withal. It was a serious ordeal for
him, and once launched in mid-air the chances were about even in favour
of a quicker and more disastrous descent than either cared to think of.
The rope jammed his unwary knuckles against the hard rock, excoriating
them and causing him most excruciating agony, nearly forcing him to let
go in his pain and bewilderment. The instinct of self-preservation
prevailed, however, and eventually he landed safely beside his
companion--where the first thing he did on recovering his breath was to
break forth into a tremendous imprecation. Then, forgetting his pain
and exertion, he, following the latter's example, glanced round
curiously and a little awed, upon the remarkable place wherein they
found themselves--a place whose soil had probably never before been
trodden by human foot.

And the situation had its awesome side. The great rock walls sheering
up around had shut in this place for ages and ages, even from the
degraded and superstitious barbarians whose fears invested it and its
guardian Eye with all the terrors of the dread unknown. While the
history of civilisation--possibly of the world itself--was in its
infancy, this gulf had yawned there unexplored, and now they two were
the first to tread its virgin soil. The man who could accept such a
situation without some feeling of awe must be strangely devoid of
imagination--strangely deficient in ideas.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

THE "VALLEY OF THE EYE."

The floor of the crater was nearly level, though some