Jack turned the corner and saw, and his brown face blanched as he saw the frightful corner into which circumstances had driven them. Ten yards beyond the angle, the road ended abruptly, broken short off. Whether the beams had given way and fallen into the chasm, or whether an avalanche of rocks had beaten the road into ruins, they knew not, nor did it matter. What mattered was this, that fifty yards beyond them the road had again joined the solid bed of the pass, and that now along that fifty yards nothing was left save here and there a broken stump of teak standing out from the face of the precipice. Nothing without wings could pass over the wide space where the road had been stripped from the cliff. For a moment no one could speak. They could only stare aghast at the gulf beside and before them, at the little strip of road broken off short and square at their feet. How were they to pass this frightful, yawning abyss? CHAPTER XXXVI. PENNED IN THE PASS. "What's to be done now, father," said Jack in a low, quick voice; "the road's clean gone. We're trapped." Both stepped forward and looked over the edge of the sheer descent where the road ended. A broad torrent foamed along fifty feet below. The side of the precipice fell away to the stream as smooth as a wall. It rose above them just as smooth. No way up or down. They saw that in an instant. "Better go back and try another way," said Mr. Haydon. "Ask her, Me Dain." A few swift words passed between the Burman and the native woman. Then the guide shook his head soberly. There was no other way that she knew of. Jack stepped back to the angle and peered carefully round it. "The Kachins are coming," he said. The shelf-road had risen as it ran along the precipice, and from this point he could see a long way down the pass. He saw the bunch of pursuers sweep into sight and race up the pass. His father joined him at once. "They would see us now if we went back," said Mr. Haydon. "What on earth are we to do, Jack?" Jack knit his brows in perplexity, but made no answer. He could not see what to answer. Behind them a band of savage and determined enemies; before them a gulf over which none but a bird could pass. "We're in a frightful fix," he murmured at last. "Frightful," rejoined his father. "I give you my word that I see no way out." "Nor I, father," said Jack. "It seems to me that all we can do is to try to hold them off at this corner." "But how?" asked Mr. Haydon. "The road's fearfully rotten just at the bend," said Jack. "I think we could break it down pretty easily. It trembled and shook as I passed over it." "I see," returned his father, "break the road down and keep them from rushing us. But what of ourselves? How will it advantage us to be isolated on a patch of road, stuck against the face of the cliff like a swallow's nest against a wall?"