to his waist, as an insurance against
falls. In fifteen minutes he was up beside me. Even his journey had
been no light one. He, too, streamed with perspiration; his limbs
trembled, and he flung himself to the ground to gather breath and rest.

"Maghte! Fairmount," he gasped as soon as he had recovered a little
breath, "you must have got up by a miracle. Even with that rope, I
don't think I would care to climb the cliff again. 'Tis a job only fit
for a klipspringer [a small and very active mountain antelope], not a
man!"

We rested full twenty minutes, smoked a pipe of tobacco, and then set
about completing the rest of our task. The sharp saddle-back, a bridge
of rock which crossed another deep ravine between us and the inner
mountain, looked excessively nasty. In some places it was as much as
four feet wide; in others it narrowed to as little as two. There were
about forty yards of it; and in portions the surface was rugged and
sharp.

"Come along, Du Plessis," I said; "the sooner we're over the better.
The rest seems easy enough."

The broader part of the bridge came first, and admitted of walking for
ten yards. Then it narrowed. I went down upon all-fours, and crawled.
It was nerve-shaking work; for the bridge fell away sheer on either
side, and the drop of nearly two hundred feet meant a horrible death.
In the middle of the bridge the space was too narrow even for crawling;
it was necessary to sit astride, and so fudge one's way along for ten or
twelve yards. At last the broader part came again, and in five yards
more the solid mountain top and safety were achieved. Du Plessis had
followed close behind, imitating carefully my tactics. As we stood up
upon safe ground again, I noticed that he was deadly pale. He shook his
head, as he looked at me ruefully, and wrung the sweat from his brow.
"Man!" he said, "if I had not been _shamed_ into following you, I never
would have come across that place, no, not for a thousand Verloren
Vleis. You are unmarried and a little foolhardy. I am married, and
have a wife and six children pulling at my jacket. I didn't bargain for
these adventures; they are only fit for baboons."

"Come on, Koenraad," I replied, laughing. "It's a nasty crossing, I
own; but it's all plain sailing now, apparently."

We went on over the mountain for twenty minutes; then came a shallow
kloof, thickly bushed at bottom; then another ascent, a rough walk of
another half-hour; and th