"
"Turn to your left and proceed carefully along the edge. I'll
turn to my right. Go easy, lad; feel your way."
I crawled on my hands and knees, no faster than a snail, feeling
every inch of the ground. The surface was wet and slippery, and
in places sloped at an angle that made me hang on for dear life
to keep from shooting off into space.
Meantime I kept calling to Harry and he to me; but, on account of
our painfully slow progress, it was half an hour or more before
we discovered that the distance between us was being increased
instead of lessened.
He let fly an oath at this, and his tone was dangerous; no wonder
if the lad was half crazed! I steadied him as well as I could
with word of encouragement, and instructed him to turn about and
proceed to the right of his original position. I, also, turned to
the left.
Our hope of meeting lay in the probability that the ledge
surrounded a circular body of water and was continuous. At some
point, of course, was the entrance of the stream which had
carried us, and at some other point there was almost certainly an
outlet; but we trusted to luck to avoid these. Our chances were
less than one in a thousand; but, failing that, some other means
must be invented.
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