"I lost sight of my sheep just below where you see those, sir, and I
think if we keep on along for a mile beyond we shall find the stream we
want running down into the other valley."
Mr Raydon stood shading his eyes for a few minutes.
"Yes," he said, at last. "You are quite right. I can see the mountain
I have been on before. Forward!"
The way was less arduous now, and the fresh breeze into which we had
climbed made it cooler; but still it was laborious enough to make me
pant as I followed right in Mr Raydon's steps. Before we had gone on
much further I saw the sheep take alarm, and go bounding up, diagonally,
what looked like a vast wall of rock, and disappear; and when we had
climbed just below where I had seen them bound, it seemed impossible
that they could have found footing there.
Another half-hour's toilsome ascent, for the most part among loose
stones, and we stood gazing down into a narrow gully similar to that up
which we had climbed, and at the bottom I saw a little rushing stream,
which Mr Raydon said was the one we sought, and I knew that we had but
to follow that to where it joined the big river, after a journey through
the dense mass of forest with which the valley was filled.
Here we halted for a few minutes in a stony solitude, where there was
not the faintest sound to be heard; and then Mr Raydon's deep voice
whispered "Forward!" and we began to descend cautiously, for the way
down to the stream was so perilous that it was only by using the
greatest care that we reached the bottom in safety, and began to follow
the torrent downward.
"No chance for them to escape by us this way," said Mr Raydon to me
with a grim smile, looking back as we descended the chasm in single
file, gradually going as it were into twilight, and then almost into
darkness, with perpendicular walls of rock on either hand, and the moist
air filled with the echoing roar and rush of water.
Here Mr Raydon took the lead, the man who had been in advance letting
us both pass him, and then following behind, me.
"I have been up this stream to this point before," said Mr Raydon to
me. "You never thought to see such places as this, Gordon," he
continued, "when you left London."
"No," I said eagerly, for it was pleasant to hear him make some advances
towards me; but he said no more, relapsing into complete silence as he
strode on or leaped from rock to rock, till by degrees, and repeating
our morning's experience in the reverse way, we began to find the narrow
gorge widen and grow less dark; then we came to places where the
sunshine gleamed down, and there were ferns; then lower down to more
light, and where bushes were plentiful, but still with the valley so
narrow that we had to keep in single file.
At last, the perpendicular walls were further back, the valley grew
V-shaped, and patches of dwarf forest grew visible high up. Bigger
trees appeared, and soon after the place became park-like, and a man
stepped out to right and left, so that in front we were three abreast;
and half an hour later we were amongst the thickly-growing pines--a line
of eight men abreast with Mr Raydon in the middle, and I and the other
behind.
"Halt!" said Mr Raydon, in a whisper. "Join up."