These arrangements having been made, Bob left the ladies in charge of Ah-Sam and started on his hazardous expedition. Knowing that the fissure, if of any considerable depth, must be quite dark, he took with him a torch improvised out of a piece of sacking smeared with mule fat, and a box of matches. He climbed over the intervening rocks, turned a corner, reached the ledge, and walked along until he came to the exposed portion, where he halted for a moment. Then, springing forward like a sprinter, he dashed over the narrow shelf at the imminent risk of stumbling and falling to the rocky bed of the stream fifty feet below. He was seen by the Russians on the hill, and in the few seconds he took to complete the passage he heard a patter of bullets on the rocks, and one or two even followed him as he gained the opening and plunged in. But he had escaped unhurt, and safe in the fissure he paused to take breath and to light his torch, reflecting that he would run double danger in coming out, for the Russians would doubtless be on the watch for him. Making his way into the cleft, he found that it was broader than he had expected. After about twenty yards it took a sudden curve to the left, and then widened into a jagged irregular passage some four yards in breadth, and of varying height. At one moment, torch in hand, he had to stoop to avoid a sharp edge of rock; a little later the passage was at least twenty feet high. He had penetrated as nearly as he could judge for about fifty yards, when his steps were arrested by the faint sounds of firing behind him, and he hurried back. As he approached the opening the sound became so loud and continuous that he felt sure a stiff fight was in progress. Keeping close to the less-exposed wall of the cleft at its mouth, he saw from his elevated position that the Russians were at last making the long-expected attack. From the hill a hot fire was being brought to bear upon the mouth of the gully, while a number of the enemy were just emerging from round the hillside to the right, being protected from the fire of the dozen Chunchuses by the boulders. They were making for the right extremity of the barrier, a point which it was impossible to defend because of the direct and rapid firing from the hill.