mar," I cried breathlessly. "It was an accident. I could not
avoid it, and nearly fell, too."

But it was apparent that my voice did not reach him, for he slowly
lowered himself over the next projection, and continued giving directions
to the men who followed, while I, with the next ledge fallen away, was
compelled to let myself drop a distance of about nine feet on to one that
seemed far below.

From that point the descent became much easier, although during the two
hours it occupied I stumbled and nearly lost my foothold many times. My
feet and hands were covered with blood, my elbows were severely grazed,
and from my knees the skin was torn by the constant scrambling over the
edges of the ledges.

Truly the approach to the Land of the Great White Queen was fraught with
a myriad dangers.

When about half-way down the steep rock another piercing shriek broke
forth immediately below me, and glancing down I saw one of our black
companions who had dropped from one ledge to the next lose his footing,
stumble, and fall headlong into the great chasm. Cries of horror escaped
us as we saw him strike a rugged ledge of rock far below, rebound, and
then fall head foremost to the rock's base, his skull already battered to
a pulp.

This terrible lesson was heeded by everyone, and for fully half an hour
the silence was almost complete, save for the gasps and hard breathing of
our followers as they toiled onward down the steep face of the gigantic
rock.

Someone cried out that here, as across the quicksands, there were a
thousand steps. If this were true, as I believe it was, then the average
distance between the ledges being about five feet, the height of the rock
was somewhere about five thousand feet. When progress at last became
easier, I tried to attract Omar's attention, and inquire whether we
should have to scale the rock opposite, but I could not project my voice
far enough below to reach him. When he shouted I could hear, as his voice
ascended, but he apparently could not distinguish what I said in reply.

Kona, his bow and empty quiver slung behind him, scrambled down after me
ever nimble as a cat. His black skin shone like ebony, but here and there
were cuts from which blood freely flowed, showing that he too, although
inured to a savage life, had not altogether escaped in this struggle to
enter the land unknown.

As we approached the base the ledges became more frequent, and hastening
in my downward climb I at l