Before us the trees dropped away rapidly, so that twenty feet out in a
straight line we were looking directly into their tops. There, quite on
an equality with their own airy estate, we could watch the fly-catchers
and warblers conducting their small affairs of the chase. It lent us
the illusion of imponderability; we felt that we too might be able to
rest securely on graceful gossamer twigs. And sometimes, through a
chance opening, we could see down over billows of waving leaves to a
single little spot of blue, like a turquoise sunk in folds of green
velvet, which meant that the River was dropping below us. This, in the
mercy of the Red Gods, was meant as encouragement.
The time came, however, when the ramparts we scaled rose sheer and bare
in impregnability. Nothing could be done on the straight line, so we
turned sharp to the north. The way was difficult, for it lay over great
fragments of rock stricken from the cliff by winter, and further
rendered treacherous by the moss and wet by a thousand trickles of
water. At the end of one hour we found what might be called a ravine,
if you happened not to be particular, or a steep cleft in the precipice
if you were. Here we deserted the open air for piled-up brushy tangles,
many sharp-cornered rock fragments, and a choked streamlet. Finally the
whole outfit abruptly ceased. We climbed ten feet of crevices and stood
on the ridge.
The forest trees shut us in our own little area, so that we were for
the moment unable to look abroad over the country.
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