Oh, indescribable glory!

For a moment, my eyes swept over the horizon,—­I was far above the earth,—­then back to the beauteous snow in its sunset splendor.  The rosy tinges lifted and vanished, and a cool twilight glow rested on the mountain summits.  I looked upon the plain below.  Far beneath, it lay in the evening shadow with its thousand fading tints of tropic foliage, with one spot of blue, almost immediately below, in all that mass of verdure—­the lake.  I knew then that I was almost exactly above the cave I had so long inhabited.  And Pippity—­Grilly—­were they there now?

I was about to call with all my might; but what ear could hear at that great distance?

Three thousand feet at least of space separated my friends from me.  How could I get down that almost perpendicular rock, and how could they get up to me?  How could they know that I was there?

And now the specter of starvation rose up before me in strongest force.  Should I try to find my way back again?—­once more attempt the darkness?  No! no!  Too precious was the daylight.  It would not do.  And what could be gained?  I could not possibly live to reach the bottom!

The twilight rested serenely on the encircling range of mountain snow, then faded sweetly from the darkening sky.

The stars are beacons of hope and faith.  Under them I lay down and slept.

It was a refreshing slumber that I had beneath an unclouded sky, and when I awoke it was early dawn.  The cool air was grateful; and so charming seemed all nature that I forgot my hunger and the isolation of my position.  I began, too, to examine the situation.  I had emerged from the cavern into open day by reason of the sudden termination of the wall which I had had so long on my right.  There was left the inner wall as before, now exposed and forming the exterior of the mountain.  I stood on a platform of rock about four feet square.  Beyond was an angle in the wall, and just then a step to a higher grade of flat rock also.  Then a considerable steepness of the narrow floor, and a bending to the left, when it was lost to view behind the mass of perpendicular rock.  As the sun rose, I looked down toward the lake, which seemed to lie almost directly beneath, so nearly perpendicular was the mountain on that side.  About six or seven hundred feet below me, I observed a bird flying from point to point up the mountain.  Soon it disappeared from view.  It had flown to the other side.  Presently it re-appeared, still circling and rising, now perching at one point, and now at another higher up, then passing out of view again.  At length it seemed to come more directly upward; it rose more rapidly, and was continually in sight.

It was a parrot.  I heard its cry.  I could see it distinctly.

“Pippity, Pippity!” I cried, “is that you?”

He gave one joyful scream, alighted on my shoulder, and then on my hand, talking as fast as his tongue could run:  “How d’ ye do?  How d’ ye do?  Frank, Frank!”