l, Master Nic--barrowload if you like. You get me an old
canister. There'll be some nice fat uns down aside where I grows my
cowcumbers. Ah! I never thought, when I got digging 'em out o' the
side of the cowcumber beds at home, I should ever get making on 'em out
here, t'other side o' the world."

Nic fetched a bag instead of a canister, and soon after stood ready to
start.

"You go same way as I took yer that night, Master Nic, and then work
your way up for a hour or so, and all under they tree-ferns you'll find
pools and pools with lots o' fish in 'em; but I don't know how you're
going to get on with that long thin clothes-prop of a thing. But,
there, you're a gen'leman, and I s'pose you knows best."

"Well, I shall try with it, Sam," said Nic, laughing.

"Ay, sir, do, and good luck to you. Now I'll get back to my hoeing."

Nic shouldered his rod, and with his basket in his hand he left the
garden, went round by the wooden building set apart for the men, and
then struck across the open ground for the gully, where he soon came
upon the tree-bridge he had crossed that moonlight night in company with
old Sam; and he could not help hesitating for a few moments as he looked
down into the narrow, dark rift, along which the water was rushing far
below, while the noise of the waterfall was hollow, reverberating, and
strange.

Nic took a long breath, and looked at the tree, which had been felled so
that it tumbled right across the rift, and then worked with an adze so
as to make a level surface about as wide as an ordinary plank, the lower
branches being left on at the sides of the trunk and beneath.

He drew another deep breath, and noted that if he fell, unless he caught
at one of these hanging branches, checked himself and managed to climb
back, he must drop all that tremendous depth into the black-looking pool
of water below.

He drew a third deep breath, and thought that if he had known what the
place was like, old Sam would never have got him across, that first
night of his coming.

Then he took another long, deeper breath than ever, and said to himself:

"If that were a plank laid flat upon the ground I could hop along it
upon one leg, so it is only cowardice to hesitate."

The next minute he was across, and walking along the other side of the
ferny gully, to stop by the waterfall and admire the beauty of the
glassy water as it glided over the rocks and fell down into the thick
mist, which rose like a