there alone, and his return
wholly depending upon the safety of his companion, animated Oddo afresh
to find a way up the rock. It looked to him as like a wall as any other
rock about the islet. There was no footing where he was looking;--that
was certain. So he advanced farther into the chasm, where the rocks so
nearly met that a giant's arm might have touched the opposite wall.
Here there was promise of release from his dangerous situation. At the
end of a ledge, he saw something like poles hanging on the rock,--some
work of human hands, certainly. Having scrambled towards them, he found
the remains of a ladder, made of birch poles, fastened together with
thongs of leather. This ladder had once, no doubt, hung from top to
bottom of the chasm; and its lower part, now gone, was that ladder of
which Peder had often spoken as a proof that men had been on the island.

With a careful hand, Oddo pulled at the ladder; and it did not give way.
He tugged harder, and still it only shook. He must try it; there was
nothing else to be done. It was well for him now that he was used to
dangerous climbing,--that he had had adventures on the slippery, cracked
glaciers of Sulitelma, and that being on a height with precipices below,
was no new situation to him. He climbed, trusting as little as possible
to the ladder, setting his foot in preference on any projection of the
rock, or any root of the smallest shrub. More than one pole cracked:
more than one fastening gave way, when he had barely time to shift his
weight upon a better support. He heard his grandfather's voice calling,
and he could not answer. It disturbed him, now that his joints were
strained, his limbs trembling, and his mouth parched so that his breath
rattled as it came.

He reached the top, however. He sprang from the edge of the precipice,
unable to look down, threw himself on his face, and panted and trembled,
as if he had never before climbed anything less safe than a staircase.
Never before, indeed, had he done anything like this. The feat was
performed,--the islet was not to him inaccessible. This thought gave
him strength. He sprang to his feet again, and whistled loud and
shrill. He could imagine the comfort this must be to Peder; and he
whistled more and more merrily till he found himself rested enough to
proceed on his search for Rolf.

Never had he seen a place so full of water-birds and their nests. Their
nests strewed all the ground; and t