The Cliff Climbers

Chapter Four.

Home to the hut

Emerging from the cave after their fruitless exploration, all three – Karl, Caspar, and Ossaroo – sat down upon the rocks in front of the cliff, and for some time remained silent. The looks of all betokened a deep and hopeless despair. The same thought was passing in their minds. A painful thought it was – that they were completely cut off from all communication with the world, and might never again look on human faces, save their own!

Caspar was the first to give expression to this gloomy foreboding.

“Oh, brother!” groaned he, addressing himself to Karl, who sat nearest to him, “oh! it is an awful fate! Here must we live, here must we die, far away from home, far away from the world – alone – alone!”

“No,” replied Karl, deeply moved by the distress of his brother, “no, Caspar, not alone – God is with us. Let Him be our world.”

However Caspar in his conscience might have acknowledged the justice of the admonition, it failed to cheer him. Indeed, he could not help perceiving, that Karl had uttered the speech half doubtingly, and with the design of affording consolation. Moreover, the effort which Karl was making to look hopeful and cheerful was evidently constrained; and only the more convinced his companions that neither hope nor joy was in his breast.

To Karl’s consolatory words his brother made no rejoinder. Ossaroo, however, gave vent to his thoughts by an ambiguous shake of the head, and a brief speech characteristic of that belief in fatalism peculiar to his race.

“Ah, sahibs,” said he, addressing himself to both, “if the Great Sahib in the sky will we go out from here, we go – if He no will, we no go – nivvamore.”

Ossaroo’s speech, however compatible with a true faith, did not contribute much towards cheering the spirits of the party; and for another long interval all remained silent.

Caspar and Ossaroo appeared completely prostrated by the new disappointment. Karl, on the other hand, seemed less disposed to view things despairingly; and as he sate, was evidently engaged in active thought.

After awhile his companions observed this; though neither made any attempt to rouse him from his reverie. They guessed, that, whatever was passing in his mind would soon be communicated to them.

They were right in this conjecture: for in a few minutes Karl terminated the silence by addressing them.

“Come!” said he, speaking in a tone of encouragement, “we are wrong in so soon yielding to despair. Let us not give up, till we are beaten at all points. I have told you what my object was, when I first mounted upon that ledge, and discovered the cave and its surly occupant, the bear. I thought then, that, if we could find a series of ledges one above another, and sufficiently near each other, we might plant ladders upon them, and so reach the top. You see that there is such a succession of ledges – just before your faces there. Unfortunately there is one of the spaces high up yonder – where the cliff is darkest – that cannot be less than sixty or seventy feet in width. I have ascertained that by comparing it with the height from the ground to the cave – which I had just finished measuring when I met the bear. It would be impossible for us to make a ladder that length – or even to hoist it up there if made – so that all thought of scaling the cliff at this point must be given up.”

“Perhaps,” interposed Caspar, catching at Karl’s idea, “there may be some other part of the precipice where the ledges are nearer to each other? Did you examine it all around?”

“No. I had got no further than this place, when I met Master Bruin; and, as you know, our adventures with him and our exploration of the cave have taken up our time ever since, and, indeed, driven the design of the ladders quite out of my head. Now, however, we may return to it; and our next move will be to go all round, and see whether a better place may not be discovered. To-night it is too late. It already begins to darken; and we must have clear daylight for such a purpose. Let us home to our hut, and have some supper and then go to rest – having first prayed to Him for success. We may rise in better spirits, and continue our examination in the morning.”

To this proposal there was no objection on the part of either Caspar or Ossaroo. On the contrary, the mention of supper – both being very hungry – had caused them to start to their feet with remarkable alacrity; and Karl, taking the lead, they followed him, Fritz in turn following them.

On arriving at their hut, supper was cooked and eaten, with that zest which hunger always gives, even to the coarsest viands; and, having carried out the remaining part of the programme which Karl had suggested – that is, the offering up a prayer for success on the morrow – the trio sought their grass-covered couches with a feeling of renewed hopefulness.

Chapter Five.

A midnight intruder

They had been asleep several hours, when all three were suddenly awakened by the barking of Fritz. During night hours the faithful creature stayed habitually within the hut – where he also had his bed of dry grass. On hearing any unusual noise without, he would rush forth and prowl about for awhile; and, after satisfying himself that there was no enemy in the neighbourhood, would return quietly to his lair.

Fritz was far from being a noisy dog. He had seen too much service, and gathered too much wisdom, to waste his breath in idle barking; and it was only upon grand and important occasions that he condescended to give tongue. Then, however, his bark – or bay, it should rather be termed – was terrific.

On the occasion in question – which happened just about the hour of midnight – the three sleepers were suddenly awakened by his expansive “yowl,” that filled the whole valley, and reverberating from the cliffs, appeared continuous. The dog, after uttering this warning note, had rushed out of the hut – which had no door to it – and it was from some place down near the lake that his barking appeared to proceed.

“What can it be?” was the prompt and very natural inquiry of the three individuals, whom Fritz had so abruptly awakened from their slumbers.

“Something Fritz is frightened at,” said Caspar, who knew the dog’s nature better than either of the others. “He don’t bark that way at any sort of game that he knows he can conquer. It’s some animal that’s a match for him, I warrant. If the old yâk bull were still alive, I should say it was he.”

“There may be tigers in this valley; I never thought of that,” rejoined Karl. “Now that I do think of it,” continued he, drawing upon the reminiscences of his zoological reading, “it is quite probable. People believe the tiger to be exclusively an inhabitant of tropical or subtropical regions. That is an error. On this continent (the speaker was in Asia) the royal Bengal tiger ranges at least as far north as the latitude of London. I know he is found on the Amoor as high as the fiftieth degree.”

“Mercy on us!” broke in Caspar; “it may be a tiger, and we have never thought of having a door to our hut! If it should be one – ”

Here the hypothetic speech of Caspar was abruptly brought to a conclusion, by a singular noise from without – which was heard mingling in chorus with the baying of Fritz.

The noise in question bore some resemblance to the sound of a trumpet, only sharper and more treble in its character. It was in effect more like the squeak of a penny trumpet than the real article; and yet, withal, there was something terrifying in the sound.

It must have terrified Fritz: for the moment after it was heard, the dog came rushing back into the hut, as if pursued by a legion of horned bulls; and, though he kept up his angry baying, he appeared altogether disinclined to venture out again.

Just then, the singular noise was heard outside the door – something between a shriek and a whistle – and this time with a far more terrifying effect: since, whatever produced it – bird, beast, or man – was evidently near, and still approaching nearer.

Of the three individuals within the hut, only one had ever before heard a sound exactly similar to that. Ossaroo was the one. The old shikaree recognised the noise the moment it reached his ears, and knew perfectly well the sort of instrument that must have been producing it; but he was hindered for a time from proclaiming his knowledge, by surprise, as well as a strong feeling of terror at hearing such a sound in such a place.

“By de wheels ob Juggernaut car!” he gasped out. “Can’t be – can’t be; no possible him be here.”

“Who? What?” demanded Karl and Caspar, in a breath.

“See, sahibs! it him – it him!” hurriedly rejoined the Hindoo, in a sort of shrieking whisper. “We all perish – it him – it him – de god – de mighty – de terrible – ”

There was no light within the hovel, except a faint glimmer from the moon shining brightly enough outside; but it did not require any light to tell that the shikaree was frightened pretty nearly out of his senses. His companions could discover by his voice that he had suddenly changed position, and was retreating backward to that corner of the hut furthest from the doorway. At the same time his words reached them in whispers, cautioning them to lie close and keep silent.

Both, without knowing what the danger was, of course obeyed injunctions thus emphatically delivered; and remained sitting up on their couches without uttering a word. Ossaroo, after having delivered his cautioning speeches, kept equally silent.

Once more the strange sound fell upon their ears – this time as if the instrument that produced it had been thrust into the doorway of the hovel. At the same instant the turf outside, hitherto glistening under a bright moonlight, became darkened by the shadow of an enormous creature – as if the queen of night had suddenly disappeared behind the blackest of clouds! Still the light could be seen beyond, and the moon was shining. It was no cloud that had obscured her; but some vast body moving over the earth, and which, having come up to the front of the hovel, was there halting.

Karl and Caspar fancied they could see a gigantic living form, with huge thick limbs, standing outside; but, indeed, both were as much terrified by the apparition as Ossaroo himself, though perhaps for a different reason.

Fritz must have been as much frightened as any of the four; and fear had produced upon him an effect exactly similar to that it had produced upon Ossaroo. It kept him silent. Cowering in a corner, Fritz was now as quiet as if he had been born a voiceless dingo.

This speechless trance seemed to have its influence upon the awe-inspiring shadow outside the door: for, after giving utterance to another specimen of shrill piping, it withdrew with as much silence as if it had been but the shadow it appeared!

Caspar’s curiosity had become too strong to be kept any longer under the control of his fears. As soon as the strange intruder was seen moving away from the hut, he stole forward to the entrance, and looked out. Karl was not slow in following him; and Ossaroo also ventured from his hiding-place.

A dark mass – in form like a quadruped, but one of gigantic size – could be seen going off in the direction of the lake. It moved in majestic silence; but it could have been no shadow, for on crossing the stream – near the point where the latter debouched into the lake – the plashing of its feet could be heard as it waded through the water, and eddies could be seen upon the calm surface. A simple shadow would not have made such a commotion as that?

“Sahibs!” said Ossaroo, in a tone of mysterious gravity, “he be one ob two ting. He eider be de god Brahma, or – ”

“Or what?” demanded Caspar.

“An ole rogue.”

Chapter Six.

A talk about elephants

“An old rogue?” said Caspar, repeating the words of the shikaree. “What do you mean by that, Ossy?”

“What you Feringhee, sahib, call rogue elephant.”

“Oh! an elephant!” echoed Karl and Caspar – both considerably relieved at this natural explanation of what had appeared so like a supernatural apparition.

“Certainly the thing looked like one,” continued Caspar.

“But how could an elephant enter this valley?”

Ossaroo could not answer this question. He was himself equally puzzled by the appearance of the huge quadruped; and still rather inclined to the belief that it was some of his trinity of Brahminee gods, that had for the nonce assumed the elephantine form. For that reason he made no attempt to explain the presence of such an animal in the valley.

“It is possible for one to have come up here from the lower country,” remarked Karl, reflectively.

“But how could he get into the valley?” again inquired Caspar.

“In the same way as we got in ourselves,” was Karl’s reply; “up the glacier and through the gorge.”

“But the crevasse that hinders us from getting out? You forget that, brother? An elephant could no more cross it than he could fly; surely not?”

“Surely not,” rejoined Karl. “I did not say that he could have crossed the crevasse.”

“Oh! you mean that he may have come up here before we did?”

“Exactly so. If it be an elephant we have seen – and what else can it be?” pursued Karl, no longer yielding to a belief in the supernatural character of their nocturnal visitant – “it must of course have got into the valley before us. The wonder is our having seen no signs of such an animal before. You, Caspar, have been about more than any of us. Did you never, in your rambles, observe anything like an elephant’s track?”

“Never. It never occurred to me to look for such a thing. Who would have thought of a great elephant having climbed up here? One would fancy such unwieldy creatures quite incapable of ascending a mountain.”

“Ah! there you would be in error: for, singular as it may appear, the elephant is a wonderful climber, and can make his way almost anywhere that a man can go. It is a fact, that in the island of Ceylon the wild elephants are often found upon the top of Adam’s Peak – to scale which is trying to the nerves of the stoutest travellers. It would not be surprising to find one here. Rather, I may say, it is not: for now I feel certain what we have just seen is an elephant, since it can be nothing else. He may have entered this valley before us – by straying up the glacier as we did, and crossing the chasm by the rock bridge – which I know he could have done as well as we. Or else,” continued Karl, in his endeavour to account for the presence of the huge creature, “he may have come here long ago, even before there was any crevasse. What is there improbable in his having been here many years – perhaps all his life, and that may be a hundred years or more?”

“I thought,” said Caspar, “that elephants were only found on the plains, where the vegetation is tropical and luxuriant.”

“That is another popular error,” replied Karl. “So far from affecting tropical plains, the elephant prefers to dwell high up on the mountains; and whenever he has the opportunity, he climbs thither. He likes a moderately cool atmosphere – where he may be less persecuted by flies and other troublesome insects: since, notwithstanding his great strength and the thickness of his hide, so small a creature as a fly can give him the greatest annoyance. Like the tiger, he is by no means exclusively a tropical animal; but can live, and thrive too, in a cool, elevated region, or in a high latitude of the temperate zone.”

Karl again expressed surprise that none of them had before that time observed any traces of this gigantic quadruped, that must have been their neighbour ever since the commencement of their involuntary residence in the valley. Of course this surprise was fully shared by Caspar. Ossaroo participated in it, but only to a very slight degree. The shikaree was still inclined towards indulging in his superstitious belief that the creature they had seen was not of the earth, but some apparition of Brahma or Vishnu.

Without attempting to combat this absurd fancy, his companions continued to search for an explanation of the strange circumstance of their not having sooner encountered the elephant.

“After all,” suggested Caspar, “there is nothing so strange about it. There are many large tracts of the valley we have not explored; for instance, that wide stretch of black forest that lies at its upper end. Neither of us has ever been through there since the first two days, when we followed the deer all round, and went afterwards to examine the cliff. For myself, I never strayed that way while hunting – because I always found the game in the open grounds near the lake. Now the elephant may have his lair in that piece of forest, and only come out at night. As for tracks, no doubt there are plenty, but I never thought of looking for them. You know, brother, we have been too busy in making our tree-bridge, and afterwards exploring the cavern, to think of much else.”

Karl admitted the truth of these observations; for it was as Caspar had alleged. During the whole time of their residence in the valley, the minds of all three, filled with anxiety about the future, had been keenly bent upon devising some means of escape; and on this account they had given very little attention to anything that did not in some way contribute to that end. Even Caspar, in his hunting excursions, had not gone over one-half of the valley; nor had these excursions been very numerous. In three or four days he had procured as much meat as was necessary. This had been carefully cured by Ossaroo, and formed the staple of their daily food. Only upon rare occasions were the guns afterwards used to procure a little fresh provision – such as a brace of wild duets from the lake, or one of the smaller game animals which could be found almost any morning within gunshot distance of the hut. For these reasons many parts of the valley had been left unvisited; and it was deemed possible enough for even a great elephant to have been all the time dwelling within its boundaries, unseen by any of the party. Indulging in these conjectures, all three remained awake for more than an hour; but as the subject of their speculations appeared to have gone altogether away, they gradually came to the conclusion that he was not going to return at least for that night – and their confidence being thus restored, they once more betook themselves to sleep – resolved in future to keep a sharp lookout for the dangerous neighbour that had so unexpectedly presented himself to their view.

Chapter Seven.

Re-stocking the guns

Next morning all three were astir betimes, and out of the hut by the earliest light of day. Karl and Caspar were anxious to obtain more definite information about the elephant, whose existence Ossaroo was still inclined to doubt. Indeed, with the exception of the three or four shrieking whistles to which the animal had given utterance, so silently and mysteriously had he come and departed, that they might almost have fancied the whole thing a dream.

But such an immense creature could not move about, without leaving some traces of his presence; and as he had crossed the stream, or rather a little embayment of the lake into which the stream emptied itself, no doubt his tracks would be found on the sandy shore.

As soon, therefore, as the day broke, all three started for the spot where the creature had been seen to cross.

On reaching it, they could no longer doubt that an elephant had paid them a visit. Huge footprints – nearly as big as the bottom of a bushel measure – were deeply indented in the soft sand; and looking across the “straits” (for so they were in the habit of calling the narrow mouth of the bay), they could see other similar tracks on the opposite shore, where the animal had waded out.

Ossaroo was no longer doubtful as to the character of the creature that had made those tracks. He had hunted elephants in the jungles of Bengal, and knew all the peculiarities of the grand quadruped. Such footmarks as were now under his eyes could not have been made by a mere visionary animal, but only by a real elephant in the flesh.

“And one of the biggest kind,” asserted the shikaree, now speaking in full confidence, and declaring, at the same time, that he could tell its height to an inch.

“How can you do that?” asked Caspar, in some surprise.

“Me berra easy tell, young sahib,” replied Ossaroo; “only need takee size ob de rogue’s foot. Dis way, sahibs.”

Saying this, the shikaree drew forth from one of his pockets a piece of string; and, choosing one of the tracks which had made the clearest impression, he carefully applied the string around its outer edge. In this way the circumference of the elephant’s foot was obtained.

“Now, sahibs,” said Ossaroo, holding the string between his fingers – that portion of it which had been applied around the footprint – “twice the length of dis reachee to the top of he shoulder; that how Ossaroo know he biggee elephant.”

The circumference of the foot thus measured being nearly six feet, it would follow, from the rule laid down by the shikaree, that the elephant in question was nearly twelve feet high; and this Karl knew to be one of the largest. Nor did Karl question the correctness of the deduction: for he had often heard, from hunters whose word was not to be doubted, that the height of an elephant is exactly twice the circumference of his foot.

Ossaroo, having now yielded up his belief – that the elephant was one of his gods in disguise – declared with full confidence that the animal was a rogue. Karl needed no explanation of what was meant by this. He knew that the rogue elephant is an old male, who, for some reason or other – perhaps for bad behaviour – has had the cold shoulder given him by the rest of the herd, and from whose association he has been driven away. Thus cut by his former acquaintances, he is compelled to lead a solitary life – the consequence of which is, that he becomes exceedingly spiteful and morose in his disposition, and will not only attack any other animal that may chance to cross his path, but will even seek them out, as if for the mere purpose of indulging in a spirit of revenge! There are many such in the jungles of India, as well as in Africa; and, since man himself is not excepted from this universal hostility, a rogue elephant is regarded as an exceedingly dangerous creature in the neighbourhood where he takes up his abode. There are many instances recorded – and well authenticated too – where human beings have been sacrificed to the fury of these gigantic monsters: and cases are known where a rogue elephant has purposely placed himself in waiting by the side of a frequented path, with the object of destroying the unwary traveller! In the valley of the Dheira Doon an elephant of this class – one, too, that had once been tamed, but had escaped from his servitude – is known to have taken the lives of nearly twenty unfortunate people before his destruction could be effected.

Well knowing these proclivities on the part of the rogue, Ossaroo at once counselled caution in the future movements of all – a counsel which Karl was too prudent to reject; and even the bold, rash Caspar did not think it proper to dissent from.

It was resolved, therefore, before continuing their projected exploration of the cliffs, to set their weapons once more in proper order – against any chance of an encounter with the elephant.

Their guns had to be re-stocked, and a new handle put into the axe – as well as a shaft into the boar-spear of Ossaroo – for all the woodwork of these weapons had been broken up and burnt into ashes in the manufacture of the candles of bear’s-grease that had lighted them out of the cave.

The search after the ledges must necessarily be postponed; until they could go upon that errand properly armed and equipped, against any enemy that might oppose their progress.

Having come to this wise determination, they returned to their hut; kindled a fire; cooked breakfast; and having despatched the meal, at once set about selecting pieces of wood for the various purposes for which they were required.

They had no difficulty in procuring just what was wanted: for the valley contained many valuable sorts of timber; and several kinds that had been already cut for other purposes, now well seasoned and ready to hand, were found lying about the hut.

Setting about their work in earnest, and labouring diligently from morning to night – and even into the night hours – they knew they would not be long in accomplishing a task so trifling as the stocking of a gun, or putting the handle to a boar-spear.