Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Previous Page
–
Next Page
OCR
‘ v...m....- -‘ .., .......,
?
l
l
t
54 BEADLE’ S
MONTHLY.
in width from six to ten feet. Above.
and below, as far as I could throw the
light of 1ny torch, I saw this singular
formation, and concluded that it must be
so all the way to the surface. It struck
n1e at once as a. kind of ogre’s amphi-
theater, as if there, in other days, they
had held their hideous orgies.
I was encouraged to find myself plan-
ning and devising,with a busy brain, some
method of ascent, however ridiculously
impossible. Any thing was preferable to
the torpidity of despair. To ascend by
climbing up the edges of these projec-
tions, outside, over their appalling brinks,
was not to be thought of for a moment.
Even if the horror of the unfathomable
depths had 11ot been a sufficient objection,
the fact that these edges were crumbly
and insecure was an insurmountable one.
I retired to the center of the platform I
occupied, and looked up. The ceiling of
the ledge iinmediately above was about
two feet above my head. The only pos-
sible mode of ascent seemed to be by
digging onels way up through the suc-
cessive platforms or tiers. When I re-
flected that I must be 11early or quite one
hundred feet below the crater's rim, the
old qualms of despair almost repossessed
me, but I managed to become myself
again.
At least I would die trying to escape.
Choosing several large fragments, I loos-
ened them with my pickax, and built a
little hilloek on the ledge, by which I
was enabled to step up to within a few
inches of the ceiling; and, avoiding the
loathsome insects as much as possil)le, I
commenced pegging away at the rocky
roof with all my might. It was very
slow and arduous work; still I made
headway in the friable stone made porous
by the filtrations of ages and the corro-
sions of nameless centuries. Once I e:une
very near losing my pick. It flew frour
my hand by accident, and almost rolled
over the ledge. tegaiuing it, I proce(-d-
ed to avoid a similar accident by secur-
ing it to my wrist with a thong, which I
cut from my buckskin i.l'()WS('l'9. lVhile
doing this, I perceived the rope dangling
over the ledge. I had forgotten all about
that, yet there it was, with the erowbar
probably attached to its other end. I
was overjoyed at this discovery, as the
crow would be a most valuable auxiliary
to the furtherance ofmy project. Quick-
ly drawing up the line and loosening the
still secure bar, I set to work again, with
a degree of cheeriness which surprised
me. I pried off great fragments, which
went booming down the abyss, making a
most appalling, long-echoing din. In
about an hour, to my great joy, I felt
the crow go through to the surface above.
lVith a little more hard work, I effected
a large breach in the yielding rock,
through which, after increasing the eleva-
tion of the artificial stool on which I
stood, I could thrust my head and
shoulders. Very greatly encouraged, I
put all my implements up through the
aperture, and then crawled up myself,
torch in hand.
After gaining the 110w ledge, I found
to my alarm, that my t.orch was more
than half consumed. I had only made
my way up about ten feet, according to
my calculation-estimating eight feet,
from floor to ceiling, with two for the
thickness of the ledge through which I
had forced a breach. At. that rate it
would require the light of more than a
dozen pine-knots-of which I now had
but two and a half-to light me up to
life again.
Nevertheless, I resolved to do the best
I could with the materials at hand. The
next ledge, innnediately overhead, was
thicker than the first, but not so far above
me, which rendered it easier of access;
and I made a breach in about the same
time. In this way, after consuming
another of my precious pine-knots, I
forced through five ledges in all, when I
was so exhausted that I concluded to call
it a full days or night’s work (I could
not tell which,) and knock off for a. dose
of nature's sweet restorer. I was very
hungry, and then, for the first time, ex-
amined iuto the contents of the little
‘meat-bag slung at my side. Meat there
was none-only a few broken pieces of
hard-tack. I had seen the Doima place
meat within the bag. It must have been
removed by that monster in human
shape, who would thus consign me to a
In