“Do you think that Leith has made for the camp?” I asked.

“I suppose he has.  We must move as fast as we can, Verslun.  If he reaches there before us we’ll deserve any fate that will come to us.  We shouldn’t have left them.”

The utterance of the conviction that had come to both of us brought a silence, and we rushed across the boulder-strewn ground that we had crossed earlier in the night.  We felt certain that Leith knew of a surer and safer path back to the camp, but it was useless for us to hunt for a new trail at that moment.  We would have to find our way down the nearly perpendicular wall up which we had climbed after leaving the crevice through which we had viewed the death dance, and, to me at least, the recollections of that path brought feelings that were by no means pleasant.  But Leith was making toward the camp, and the horrible thoughts aroused by the spectacle which we had witnessed in the early night muzzled the thrills which the dangers of the climb sent through our bodies.  The dance had terrified the Fijian by arousing thoughts of the deeds that would happen in its wake, and Kaipi’s terror became a gauge for us to measure its dread significance.

We reached the cliffs and ran up and down the ledge in a vain search for the spot where we had clawed our way to the top.  Not that we thought the finding of the place would solve the problem of the descent.  It was hard to conceive of a more difficult way than the one by which we had come, and as if he had suddenly come to the conclusion that any other path would be preferable, Holman dropped upon his knees and lowered himself upon a ledge that was immediately below.

“Come on, Verslun!” he cried, in a choked voice that was altogether different from his cheery tones.  “If there is no path we must roll down.  There’s the first flush of the dawn!”

I looked toward the east and groaned.  The faint grayish tint unnerved me.  Although it was possible that Leith had already reached the camp, still we had promised the two girls that we would return by daylight, and although we had a hazy notion as to what we would do when we did reach their side, the longing to get there made us oblivious of danger.  I swung down on to the crumbling foothold that supported Holman, and breathlessly we began to scramble toward the valley.

It was a mad climb.  Holman exhibited a temerity that bordered on insanity.  With reckless daring he scrambled down upon dangerous niches that jutted out upon the face of the cliff, and my repeated warnings fell upon deaf ears.  A task that would have appeared impossible when viewed in daylight, lost half of its terrors because we only vaguely apprehended the dangers that threatened us when a layer of shale crumbled beneath our feet.  Our descent became a wild toboggan.  Slipping and sliding, clutching wildly at every little projection that would decrease the speed at which we were travelling, we rolled with bruised and bleeding bodies on to a small platform, and lay half stunned for a moment, as a thousand pieces of rock, dislodged by our bodies, bounced past us into the valley.