The water has saturated the banks by which our crazy ladder hangs, and every round is damp and slimy with clayey mud.  Alas, for my poor pretty gantlets! Mon Amie has thrown away hers, as useless.

Finally the ladder ceases abruptly.  My feet in vain seek a resting-place.  There is none.

A voice says,—­that kindly, earnest voice, the symbol of protective care, and our smoother of all difficulties,—­“We have swung ourselves down by a chain that hangs from the side of the last round.  We are too far below to reach or assist you.  Take the chain firmly; it is the only route, and we cannot return!”

Que faire? Behold a pleasant predicament for two city-bred ladies, not “to the manner born,” of swinging themselves from the end of a ladder by means of a rusty iron chain, from which they would alight—­where?  Surely, we know not.

I am very sure I could not reproduce in description, and probably not by practice, the inevitable monkey-contortions, the unimaginable animal agility, by which I transfer my weight to the clumsy links of this almost invisible chain.  The size of the staple from which it hangs dissipates all fears in respect to its strength.  Hand over hand, my feet sliding on the slippery bank, remembering sailors in the shrouds, and taking time to pity them, at last I reach friendly hands, and stand breathless on another level.

How the soft, white, dimpled palms of Mon Amie testify to the hardship of this episode, as she bathes them in the cooling water!  But, because one’s hands are tender, cannot one’s nerves be strong, one’s will indomitable?

Again on the tramp.  The cavernous passages are sublime in height, the chasms fearful in their yawning gulfs.  We pick our way daintily, at intervals pausing to listen to the distant reverberations of exploding blasts.  The atmosphere here, as above, is fairly heavenly in its purity and invigorating freshness; it girds us with singular strength, and clothes us as in a garment of enchanted armor that defies all soul-sinking.

Creeping behind another shaft, we reach still another chasm, above which piles of dark rocks lie heaped in such confusion as might result from a great convulsion.  There is a narrow path along its edge, and here the stones are small; but, as we look up, the mighty masses frown down upon us with threatening grandeur.  Along this path, treading lightly, as if gifted with wings, the Captain passes; then the Agent (for we had slightly altered our order of march); Mon Amie follows.  She is half-way past the danger, when an ominous pause,—­we are ordered to stop.

Down into the chasm rolls a stone, displaced by an unlucky step of our pioneer.  One stone is nothing,—­but more follow that had been supported by this:  small ones at first,—­but the larger rocks threaten a slide.  If they are not arrested in their course, she is lost!