faction, for they told us that we were still upon a highway
which led to the Promised Land.

Yet, as we could not help noting, it was one which seemed to have gone
out of use, since with the exception of a few wild-sheep tracks and the
spoor of some bears and mountain foxes, not a single sign of beast or
man could we discover. This, however, was to be explained, we reflected,
by the fact that doubtless the road was only used in the summer season.
Or perhaps the inhabitants of the country were now stay-at-home people
who never travelled it at all.

Those slopes were longer than we thought; indeed, when darkness closed
in we had not reached the foot of them. So we were obliged to spend
another night in the snow, pitching our tent in the shelter of
an over-hanging rock. As we had descended many thousand feet, the
temperature proved, fortunately, a little milder; indeed, I do not
think that there were more than eighteen or twenty degrees of frost that
night. Also here and there the heat of the sun had melted the snow in
secluded places, so that we were able to find water to drink, while the
yak could fill its poor old stomach with dead-looking mountain mosses,
which it seemed to think better than nothing.

Again, the still dawn came, throwing its red garment over the lonesome,
endless mountains, and we dragged ourselves to our numbed feet, ate some
of our remaining food, and started onwards. Now we could no longer see
the country beneath, for it and even the towering volcano were hidden
from us by an intervening ridge that seemed to be pierced by a single
narrow gulley, towards which we headed. Indeed, as the pillars showed
us, thither ran the buried road. By mid-day it appeared quite close to
us, and we tramped on in feverish haste. As it chanced, however, there
was no need to hurry, for an hour later we learned the truth.

Between us and the mouth of the gulley rose, or rather sank, a sheer
precipice that was apparently three or four hundred feet in depth, and
at its foot we could hear the sound of water.

Right to the edge of this precipice ran the path, for one of the stone
pillars stood upon its extreme brink, and yet how could a road descend
such a place as that? We stared aghast; then a possible solution
occurred to us.

"Don't you see," said Leo, with a hollow laugh, "the gulf has opened
since this track was used: volcanic action probably."

"Perhaps, or perhaps there was a wooden bridge or stairway which has