THE SEARCH BEGINS
In a few minutes all were ready to go on again. Harry had asked Maria
if she would like to go down the ladder and wait till they returned.
"No, señor, I should not like it at all. I don't care how full of bats
the rooms are, now that I know what they are. As for Dias, I have no
doubt that the first time he heard them he was just as frightened."
"No, I was not; but I dare say I should have been if the man I was
with--I was then only about José's age--had not told me that the cavern
was full of bats. There was a great storm coming on, and he proposed
that we should take shelter there. We brought the mules into the mouth
of the cave, and he said, 'Now, we will light a torch and go in a bit
farther, and then you will be astonished. It is a bat cavern, and I
have no doubt there are thousands of them here. They won't hurt us,
though they may knock out our torch, and the noise they make is enough
to scare one out of one's senses, if one does not know what it is.'
Though I did know, I own I was frightened a bit; but since then I have
been into several such caves, so I knew in a moment what it was. I
ought to have warned the señors, for an old house like this, where
there is very little light, is just the place for them."
"But there were birds too, Dias."
"Yes, I expect they were nearer. Perhaps some of them were in the other
rooms, where they would be close to the openings. But they were
probably scared too by the noise of the bats, and as the windows behind
were too small for them all to fly out together, they made for the
light instead."
"Well, now, let us start," Harry said, getting up. They again lit
their torches, and this time found everything perfectly quiet in the
passage. Two or three yards beyond the spot at which they had before
arrived they saw a staircase to the left. It was faintly lighted from
above, and, mounting it, they found themselves in a room extending over
the whole width and depth of the house. The roof at the eastern end was
not supported by pillars, but by walls three feet wide and seven or
eight feet apart. The first line of these was evidently over the wall
of the room they had left. There were four lines of similar supports
erected, they had no doubt, over the walls of rooms below. The light
from the four windows in front, and from an irregular opening at the
other end some three feet high and six inches wide, afforded sufficient
light for them to move about without difficulty. There were many signs
of human habitation here. Along the sides were the remains of mats,
which had apparently divided spaces six feet wide into small
apartments. Turning these over they found many trifles--arrow-heads,
bead-necklaces, fragments of pots, and even a child's doll.
"I expect this is the room where the married troops lived and slept,"
Harry said; "there is not much to see here."
The two stories above were exactly similar, except that there were no
remains of dividing mats nor of female ornaments. They walked to the
narrow end. Here the opening for light was of a different shape from
those in the rooms below. It had apparently been originally of the same
shape, but had been altered. In the middle it was, like the others,
three feet high and six inches wide, but a foot from the bottom there
was a wide cut, a foot high and three feet wide. As they approached it
Dias gave an exclamation of surprise. Two skeletons lay below it. "They
must have been on watch here, señor, when they died," he said as they
came up to them.
"It is a rum place to watch," Bertie said, "for you cannot see out."
"You are right, Bertie, it is a curious hole."
The wall was over two feet thick; all the other openings had been
driven straight through it, and, as they had noticed, were doubtless
made in the stones before they were placed there, for inside they were
cleanly cut, and it was only within three inches of the outer face that
the edges had been left rough. This opening was of quite a different
character. It sloped at a sharp angle, and no view of the open sea
could be obtained, but only one of the line of rocks at the foot of the
cliffs. It was roughly made, and by the marks of tools, probably of
hardened copper, it had evidently been cut from the inside.
Harry stood looking for some time. "I cannot understand their cutting
the hole like this. It could not be noticed from the sea that there was
an opening at all; that is plain enough. But why make the hole at all
when you can see nothing from it? And yet a watch has been placed here,
while there was none at the other places where they could make out any
passing ship."
"Perhaps," Bertie said, "it was done in order that if from the other
places boats were seen approaching, they could chuck big stones down
from here and sink any boat that might row inside the rocks into the
entrance to the passage, which, as this is in the middle of the room,
must be just under us."
"In that case they would have kept a supply of big stones here. I have
no doubt whatever that it was made some time after the castle was
built, and I should say, judging by its unfinished state, the work was
done in haste. But what for, goodness only knows. Well now, having made
no discoveries whatever on the upper floor, we will go down. It is
certain that there can be no great treasure hidden under any of these
floors, there is not depth enough for hiding-places. I counted the
steps as we came upstairs, and there cannot be much more than two feet
between the floor of one room and the ceiling in the next. I fancy that
this is of single stones, each the flooring length of the space between
the half-walls. You see that there is a long beam of stone running on
the top of the dividing wall, and the ends of these stones appear to
rest on it. It is below that we must look for hiding-places."
They descended to the first floor. They found that the space behind the
great room was divided into a number of chambers. All of these, with
the exception of the small one on the sea-face, were necessarily in
absolute darkness, and in all were brackets for torches, similar to
those in the principal chamber. Bertie counted them, and found that,
including those first met with, they numbered one hundred and
twenty-three.
"How much do you think they weigh apiece?" he asked Harry when the tour
was finished.
"I have not the slightest idea, Bertie. I should think about fifteen
pounds, but it may be five pounds less than that. They would certainly
give a very nasty knock on the head."
"Oh, I was not thinking of knocks on the head. If there are a hundred
bars at fifteen pounds apiece, it is a big amount of silver; if they
are only ten pounds each--and really I think that is nearer the
mark--they weigh a thousand pounds. What is silver worth a pound?"
"It varies. You can put it at five shillings an ounce; that would be
three pounds sterling for one of silver--three thousand pounds in a
rough calculation for the lot."
"Well, that is not a bad beginning, Harry; it would pay all the
expenses and leave a couple of thousand over."
Harry shrugged his shoulders. "A drop in the ocean as far as I am
concerned, Bertie. Still, it is a beginning; and you may be sure that
they did not take all this trouble to guard this castle for the sake of
three thousand pounds' worth of silver."
They now went down to the next floor. Here there were two staircases,
and the space was divided into two parts by a wall along the centre.
There were no openings whatever for light. One half had evidently been
devoted to arms. Here still lay hundreds of spear-shafts, tens of
thousands of arrows, piles of hide shields, and caps of the same
material.
"This store must have been larger than was required for the garrison of
the place," Harry said, "it must have been a reserve for re-arming a
whole tribe."
Besides the arms there were great bales of rough cloth and piles of
skins, all in a marvellous state of preservation owing to the dryness
of the air. After thoroughly examining the room they went up the stairs
leading into it and descended those into the adjoining chamber. This
was divided into compartments by transverse walls four feet shorter
than the width, thereby leaving a passage through from end to end. Here
in confusion--for the most part turned inside out--were sacks of
matting and bags of leather. One of the compartments was filled with
great jars arranged in tiers. Some of the compartments were quite empty.
"I think, señor, that these were stores of loose grain, probably maize.
I do not see a single grain left."
They looked carefully round with the torches. "This carries out our
idea, Dias, that the people upstairs died of hunger. I have no doubt,
as you say, that the sacks did contain grain. If these had been cleared
in the ordinary way there would certainly remain a good deal loosely
scattered about. They might have been full or half-full at the time the
place was left as we found it. Possibly, instead of ten men, the
garrison may have been ten times as strong at first, but in the fifty
or hundred years before the last survivors died they may have dwindled
to a tenth of that number. However, it is plain that, as you say, the
store of food was not carried away, but was consumed to the last grain.
In the same way you can see, by the way the sacks and bags are tumbled
about and turned inside out, how careful was the search for any remnant
that might have been overlooked when they were first emptied. It all
points to starvation."
Three of the largest divisions bore evident traces that at some time or
other, animals, probably llamas or vicuñas, had been closely penned
there. Another had been occupied by a store of hay, some of which still
remained. When they had thoroughly examined this room, Harry looked at
his watch and said, "It is late in the afternoon--our torches are
nearly finished; however, there is time for a casual look round at the
cellars below. To-morrow we will begin a regular search there."
They descended by the staircase to the basement.
"How narrow this place is!" Bertie exclaimed. "It is not much more than
half the width of the room above."
"Of course it is not; the two rooms above occupied the whole width of
the house, these only occupy the width between the passage and the
rock-wall on each side. You see, the tunnel is twelve feet wide, and we
may take it that these walls are at least three feet thick--it is not
as if they had been built of brick, or even of stones cut to shape.
They knew nothing of the arch, and, as you saw outside, this came up
nearly to a point. The stones were longer and longer with each course,
each projecting over the one below it, until, when they were within two
feet of joining, a very long slab was laid across them. The stones may
be three feet wide at the bottom and ten feet at the top, and you see
the wall extends over here in the same way--as of course it must have
done, otherwise the whole thing would have overbalanced and fallen in
before that slab at the top was added. So, you see, there is the width
of the tunnel, twelve feet, and the two walls, say six feet more, to be
taken off the fifty feet. So the cellars by the side of the passage can
only be about sixteen feet and a half at this end, which is what they
seem to be, and will go away to nothing at the other end, as we shall
see presently."
The first thing they saw was a sunken tank in the floor. This was full
of water. It was about four feet square, and on sounding it with one of
the ramrods, they found it was about the same in depth, the water
coming to within a foot of the top. It was against the wall facing the
ravine.
"This must have some connection with the stream. Otherwise it would
have been dry long ago."
"We did not see any hole when we went down the passage," Bertie said.
"No. Most likely a hole something like this was cut in the rock
outside, and a pipe driven to the bottom of this cistern. They would
only have to fill the one in the tunnel with cut blocks to within a
foot of the surface, and with smaller stones to the same level as the
bed of the stream; then the water in the cistern would always be level
with that outside. They put it in this end so as to be well out of
reach of the salt water farther in. They were no fools who built this
place. However closely they were besieged, and even if the enemy
occupied the space in front of the house, their water-supply was
secure."
"But in time of floods, Harry, if the water rose a foot in the
passage--and we saw it did more than that--it would flood the whole of
this basement."
"That is so, Bertie; but you may be sure that there was some provision
against that. They would have some valve that they could shut, or
possibly there was a block of wood covered with leather that they could
push into the pipe at the bottom of this cistern."
Beyond a considerable store of firewood, in large and small blocks,
nothing could be seen in the chamber.
"I expect these two places were used as prisons," Harry said, "though
in case a very large force were assembled some may have slept here. At
ordinary times the upper rooms would be quite sufficient. But you see
they had to build the whole height of the rocky arch, and they wanted
the entrance to the place to be so far above the ground-level that it
would be extremely difficult for an enemy to climb into it. A hostile
force could only have come in at that entrance, and a small body of
determined men might have held it against a host. These lower chambers
were simply cellars; the store-rooms were above them, and the habitable
part of the castle. Now let us look at the chamber on the other side;
no doubt we shall find it just like this."
This proved to be the case. There were another cistern and more piles
of firewood, otherwise it was empty. After a short survey they returned
to the main chamber, bringing up with them two of the empty leather
bags. In these they placed the bones of the dead, the remains all
crumbling when touched, as the first skeleton had done. The bags were
lowered to the ground, and the four searchers descended and carried
them to the mouth of the ravine. In a spare bag which they brought with
them they placed the bones of the two skeletons on the steps, and then
carried them all out to the open valley.
"We will bury them when we move the camp down here to-morrow morning,"
Harry said. "We forgot the two up at that window. That is no matter, we
can throw them out to-morrow; they will lie as well at the bottom of
the sea as in the earth here."
Not much was said as they returned to the castle. They had been a very
silent party all day. The gloom and darkness, the way in which their
voices echoed in the empty hall, had exercised a depressing effect on
them; and Donna Maria, generally the most talkative of the party, had
not quite recovered from the shock which the exit of the bats had given
her. It was not until she had cooked a meal, and they all sat down to
it, that they quite recovered their spirits. They had found José
awaiting their return. He had a blazing fire, having brought down as
much firewood as he could carry, and Dias had briefly told him the
result of their explorations.
"Well, Harry, what do you think altogether?" Bertie asked after the
meal was over.
"I think we ought to be very well satisfied," he replied. "Everything
has borne out the ideas we had. The castle may have been built as a
fortress by some great chief, certainly before the time of the Incas,
or it may have been used for a prison. The ornaments and things we
found showed that it was known to the Incas. They would have had no
occasion to use it when they were undisputed masters of the country,
but when the troubles came with the Spaniards a garrison was placed
here, and possibly some of their chiefs took refuge in the place. Then
came the time when all opposition to the invaders ceased, and only a
small body of men were left here to guard the secret, and the treasure
if there were any. Generations may have passed before the last of the
garrison died of hunger, and probably all others who were in the secret
fell in some insurrection or died in the mines. All this seems plain
enough, except that possibly there was no treasure. That left by the
Chimoos may have been discovered by the Incas. I should think it
extremely likely that the ship Dias mentioned as setting out with a
large amount of treasure was intended to land its stores here.
"It may have done so, or it may have sunk at sea. I am inclined to
think that it was lost, because the traditions concerning these hidden
treasures seem to be extremely accurate; and yet, as Dias says, none
tell of any Inca treasure being concealed here. However, it is quite
possible that the treasure did come here and was landed, and that the
ship was then broken up, so that it might be supposed she was lost at
sea, and that this was kept so profound a secret by the men here, that
the news was never generally known even among the natives. So far our
search to-day has been successful, but I see that a hunt for the
treasure will be a very difficult one. Certainly in the upper chambers
there doesn't appear any possibility of such a hiding-place existing.
The whole space is accounted for. The walls are all of solid stone, and
have no special thickness. If the roofs had been arched there might be
empty spaces on each side of the spring of the arch, but they are
supported by pillars or walls, with only just space between the floors
for the beams of solid stone. Of course it is in the lowest room that
one would expect to find hiding-places like those we saw at
Pachacamac." He paused.
"Well, why should they not be there, Harry?"
"Because, as we saw, the floor is at most twelve inches above the
water-level. How is it possible that they could have constructed
chambers below that level, that is in the bed of a torrent? It is
probable that the solid rock lies many feet below the bed of the
stream. A portion of that great arch must from time to time have fallen
into it; and it may be that the river once ran forty or fifty feet
below its present level. In all the places that we have seen these
treasure chambers were formed in solid adobe foundations, as the
temples always stood on artificial terraces. With all our appliances at
the present time it would be next to impossible to sink in a stratum of
great rock fragments below the water level, and I do not believe that
the old people here could have done so even had it been a solid rock.
The difficulties of excavating chambers in it would have been enormous.
They could split rocks with the grain, and all the stone walls we have
seen were made of regular pieces, and evidently formed of stone so
split. They were able to give them a sort of facing with great labour,
but the tools they had were not made of material hard enough to work in
solid rock, and the labour of excavating such chambers would have been
stupendous. Therefore I am at a loss to imagine where any such chambers
can be in that castle."
Dias nodded gravely. He had been with travellers who had done a great
deal of excavation, and he was able to understand Harry's argument.
Maria, who was listening attentively, also understood it. José simply
rolled cigarettes and smoked them. It was a matter for his elders, and
he did not even try to follow what Harry was saying. There was some
minutes' silence, and then Bertie said, "But the floors are all even."
"What do you mean, Bertie?" Harry asked in a puzzled tone.
"I mean, Harry, that they run straight along. There is no dip in them."
"Of course there isn't. Who ever heard of building floors on the slope?"
"Yes, that is what I mean. We know that the tunnel slopes down its own
height. It is twelve feet high at the entrance, and at the lower end it
is some inches below the level, so it falls twelve feet at least. At
the end where the cistern is, the floor of the basement is only a few
inches above the bottom of the passage; therefore at the other end it
must be twelve feet above the water-level."
"You are right, Bertie!" Harry exclaimed. "What a fool I was not to
think of it! There must be a space underneath it a hundred feet long,
sloping from nothing down to twelve feet. There is room for a dozen
chambers such as those we saw on each side of the tunnel. Well done,
Bertie! you have given me fresh hope. It would be a splendid
hiding-place, for any searchers who came down and saw the water in the
cistern would believe at once that, as neither the Chimoos nor the
Incas could have known how to build under water, there was no use in
searching for hidden chambers under this floor. You see, neither of
them had any knowledge of cement or mortar. All their bricks and stones
are laid without anything of the sort; and whatever amount of labour
was available no chamber could be made under water, for as fast as
holes were dug the water would come in, and even if they could line it
with stone-work the water would penetrate through the cracks. Now,
Dias, that we see with certainty where we have to dig, we can make our
preparations. I will write down a list of the things we decided the
other day we should want:--Six kegs of powder, two hundred feet of
fuse, four boring-tools, six steel wedges, the smallest smith's fire
you can buy--for we shall have to sharpen the tools,--six borers, a
large bundle of torches, four sledge-hammers--we have enough pickaxes
and shovels,--and another fifty fathoms, that is a hundred yards, of
rope. I don't know anything else that we shall want in the mining way.
"You and your wife had better settle what provisions you must get. We
shall certainly need a good supply of flour--a couple of sacks, I
should think--tea, coffee, and sugar, dried or salted meat. And you
might get a supply of smoked fish. I have no doubt that we shall catch
fresh fish here in the sea, but we shall all be too busy to spend much
time on that. You had better get three or four gallons of pulque; one
cannot be always drinking coffee. We have still got a good stock of
whisky and brandy. Your wife will certainly want a good supply of red
pepper and other things for her stews. It would not be a bad thing to
have a couple of crates of poultry. Don't pack them too closely, or
half of them will be smothered before you get them here. Dead meat
would be of no use, for it won't keep in this heat. We can turn them
all out in the courtyard in front of the castle, and they can pick up
their living there among the lower slopes of the cliffs. We can give
them a few handfuls of grain a day. Don't get too many cocks, and let
the hens be young ones. They ought to supply us with plenty of eggs and
some broods of chickens. You must calculate what the weight will be,
and take the mules accordingly."
"Very well, señor. I need not be away more than three days at most. It
is only about twenty miles to Ancon."
"You might take the two llamas down with you and sell them there. They
have done good work, and I should not like to kill and eat them. So
mind you sell them to someone who wants them for carriage work. We
shall not require them any more for that purpose. Will you want to take
José with you?"
"I think not, señor, for I should say that four baggage mules will be
ample, and I can lead them myself; and certainly you will find José
useful here."
Dias and his wife then withdrew a short distance from the fire, and
engaged in an animated conversation as to the things she required.
"Don't stint matters," Harry said, raising his voice. "We may be here
for the next two or three months, and the less frequently you have to
go down to buy things the better. It would be easy to account for your
first purchases by saying that you were going on an expedition to the
mountains, but you could not go to the place with the same story again."
"There are other places I can go to, señor; but I will get a good store
of everything this time."
Dias started at daybreak with four mules and the two llamas. The others
rolled up the tent-beds and the remaining stores, loaded up the other
mules, and moved down to the mouth of the ravine. Here they pitched the
little tents again.
"They will form a central point for the mules to come to," Harry said.
"We will leave the sacks of maize here, but give the animals a good
feed now. They will be sure to keep close to the spot. All the other
things we will carry into the castle; but before we start we will bury
these bags of bones."
When this was done, and the saddles taken off and piled together
against the rocks, the other things were made up in portable packets,
and they started up the ravine. They made three journeys before
everything was brought to the foot of the ladder leading up to the
window. Then the two brothers mounted, and hauled the things up with a
rope which José, who remained below, fastened to them. When the last
was up he went to the foot of the rock and brought several armfuls of
the wood he had thrown down on the previous day. This was also hauled
up.
"You had better fetch some more, José. We mean to keep a big fire
burning here night and day; it will make the place cheerful. I will
have a fire also burning where we are at work below. Now, señora, we
will rig up some blankets on a line between the pillars at the end of
the room opposite to that in which we found the skeletons, so as to
make a special apartment for you and Dias. We will spread our beds at
night near the fire."
The screen was soon made. A cord was run from the wall to the pillar
next to it, some five feet above the floor, and three blankets were
sufficient to fill the space.
Harry was about to make another line from the pillar, when Maria said:
"I would rather not, señor; I am not a bit afraid. This screen is quite
large enough, and it will be more cheerful not to be shut up
altogether, as then, when I am lying down, I can see the reflection of
the fire on the walls, and it will be much more cheerful."
Then a blazing fire was lit. The wood was almost as dry as tinder, and
burnt without smoke. It was built almost touching the back wall, in
which, some five feet above the fire, Harry with a pick made a hole
four inches deep.
While he was doing this, José went down and cut a sapling four inches
in diameter, growing in a cleft on the rock, and from this cut off two
six-foot lengths and brought them up. One end of the thickest of these
was driven into the hole and tightly wedged in there, the other end was
lashed securely to an upright beam.
"There, Maria," he said when it was finished, "you will be able to hang
your pots and kettles from that at any height you like above the fire.
Now, you can set to work as soon as you like, to get breakfast for us.
We have been at work for four or five hours, and have good appetites."
"I have the cakes ready to bake, señor, and I sha'n't be long before I
get an olla ready for you."
"Well, José, what do you think of the place?" Harry asked.
"I should like it better if it were not so big," the lad said. "I shall
want a broom, señor, to sweep out the dust."
"It is three inches deep," Maria said.
"I should not bother about that, Maria; it would be a tremendous job to
sweep such a big room, and the dust is so fine that it would settle
again and cover everything. Besides, it will be a good deal softer to
lay our beds on than the stones would be, so I think you had better let
it remain as it is, especially as you are fond of going about without
your shoes. I think I will rig up a blanket against the doorway. It
will make the place look a good deal more snug, and will keep the bats
from returning."
"I am not afraid of the bats, now I know what they are; but I should be
constantly expecting them to rush out again."
"I expect a good many went back last night," Harry said. "We won't put
the blankets up till after dark. They are sure to come out again; then,
as soon as they have gone, we will close it, and they won't be able to
get in when they come back before daybreak."
Harry's expectations were fulfilled. At dusk a stream of bats rushed
out again, but this time quite noiselessly. The rush lasted for three
or four minutes. As soon as they had gone, the blankets were hung up,
and fastened across the doorway.
"They will be puzzled when they come back."
"Yes, señor," Maria said; "but when they find that they can't get in
here, they will come in through the openings above."
"So they will; I did not think of that. But when they once find that
they cannot get out here in the evening, they will go out where they
came in, and we shall have no more trouble with them. I don't know
whether they are good to eat?"
Maria gave a little cry of horror.
"Oh, señor! I could not eat such horrible things!"
"Their appearance is against them, Maria; but when people eat
alligators, frogs, snakes, and even rats, I don't see why a bat should
be bad. However, we won't touch them unless we are threatened by
starvation."
"I should indeed be starving before I could touch bats' flesh, señor."
"Well," Harry said, "if people eat monkeys, rats, and squirrels--and it
seems to me that a bat is something of a mixture of the three--one
might certainly eat bats, and if we are driven to it I should not mind
trying; but I promise you that I won't ask you to cook them."
They chatted for another hour, and then Maria went off to her corner.
The brothers spread their beds by the fire, and José had his blanket
and poncho, and it was arranged that any of them who woke should put
fresh logs on the fire.
They were all roused just before dawn by a squeaking and twittering
noise. They threw on fresh logs, and as these blazed up they could see
a cloud of bats flying overhead. They kept on going to the doorway, and
when they found they could not get through they retired with angry
squeaks. The light was gradually breaking, and in a few minutes all had
flown out through the opening. Harry and his brother followed them, and
could see them flitting about the upper windows. Presently, as if by a
common impulse, they poured in through the various openings.
"I don't suppose we shall see any more of them," Harry said, "and I own
that I shall be glad. There is something very weird in their noiseless
flitting about, and in the shadows the fire casts on the ceiling."
"They are a great deal larger than any bats I have seen," Bertie said.
"I have seen as large, or larger, at Bombay and some of the towns on
the coast."
"They bite people's toes when they are asleep, don't they?"
"Yes, the great vampire bat does, but I have never heard of any others
doing so. They live on insects, and some of them are, I believe,
vegetarian."
"Are vampire bats found here?"
"I do not think so; I fancy that they inhabit Java and other islands in
the Malay Archipelago. However, they are certainly rare, wherever they
come from, and you can dismiss them altogether from your mind."
"I was glad when I heard your voices, señors," Maria said when she
appeared a quarter of an hour later. "I knew they would not hurt me;
but I was horribly frightened, and wrapped myself up in my blanket and
lay there till I heard you talking, and I heard the logs thrown on the
fire; then I felt that it was all right."
"I don't suppose they will come again, Maria."
After drinking a cup of coffee, with a small piece of maize cake,
Bertie said:
"What is the programme for to-day?"
"We can't do much till Dias comes back. We may as well go down and have
a look at the lower rooms. I don't think there is much dust on the
floor there, but while José is away looking after the mules we will cut
enough bushes to make a couple of brooms. We shall want the place swept
as clean as possible, so that we can look about, but I don't think
there is the least chance of our being able to move the stones. Before
we do anything we will go down to the pool and have a swim, and dive
out through the entrance and have a look at those rocks."
"That is right," Bertie said. "I was longing for one yesterday morning,
but of course the first thing to be done was to examine this place."
"Would it be safe for me to bathe, señor?"
"Quite safe, Maria; the slope is very gradual, and you need have no
fear of getting out of your depth suddenly. We will be off at once,
Bertie."