Our doorway had already extended up for twenty-five feet and yet another five remained before a comfortable halting-place could be reached. The cleft forming the chimney was so much undercut that the view vertically downwards included the scree some distance below the entrance to the cavern, and anything that I might have let fall, myself for instance, would have dropped some feet further out than the two men waiting below. The halt was a mistake; there was only one course open, and that should have been taken at first. It was to work inwards until the doubtful jammed stones could be reached with the left hand, and then, trusting mainly to the footholds, hoist the body over to that side of the gully and thrust the hand into the recesses between the stones. K. shouted up some suggestion to this effect from below. How he managed to discern the proper place through the dim twilight I never was able to ascertain. But I resolved to try it, and in some strange way the cramped muscles that had appeared incapable of further effort were in a second or two relieved by the change of attitude, and the pull over to the right side that I had dreaded as the severest tax on my strength proved to be easy enough. With fists in two convenient little holes clenched to prevent the hands slipping out, I was able to take a momentary survey of the slightly rickety ladder of jammed stones that led to safety. The passage of these few feet was not at all pleasant. Had ours been the first climb of the chimney we might have reasonably decided to brave the perils of descent and return again by daylight, rather than fumble about in the dusk pawing at wabbly boulders that threatened to fall out with us at even a caress, much more promptly at a cross word. But the knowledge that others had tried them, and had learnt the futility of these threats, gave me some degree of courage, and, taking heart of grace, I, walked up the ladder and out of the first great difficulty. A. came up next, and as the hour was late and we were all a little anxious to finish, he did not scorn to use the rope at the bad corner just below the ladder. K. came up remarkably well, and I felt that if he had led us we should have mastered the pitch earlier. We were now able to walk towards the roof of the upper portion of the gully, which was as completely closed in as the cave below. The left wall everywhere overhung so much that there was no chance of climbing out by its aid. The right wall was nearly parallel to the left and showed a few more possibilities.