John Davis had hardly gone ten yards down, ere he found himself on a wide ledge covered with thick shrubs; hitherto the descent had been extremely rapid. Lighting himself by the torch, the American traversed in every direction this species of esplanade, which was about a dozen paces in circumference; and, on carefully examining the thick shrubs which covered it, the adventurer perceived that the tops had been broken as if they had received a tremendous blow. Davis looked around him. He soon concluded that this enormous gap could only have been made by the fall of two bodies: this remark gave him good hope, for at so slight a distance from the mouth of the abyss, the two enemies must have been full of life; the rapidity of their fall must have naturally been arrested by the shrubs; they might have met at various distances similar obstacles, and consequently have undergone several comparatively harmless falls. This hypothesis, erroneous though it was, still might be true. John Davis continued his descent; the slope became constantly less abrupt, and the adventurer met within his passage, not merely shrubs, but clumps of trees, grouped here and there. Still, as John Davis found no further traces, a fear fell upon him, and painfully contracted his heart; he was afraid lest the shrubs, through their elasticity, might have hurled the two unhappy men into space, instead of letting them follow the slope of the precipice. This thought so powerfully occupied the American's mind, that a deep discouragement seized upon him, and for some moments he remained without strength or will, crouching sadly on the ground. But Davis was a man of too stern a character, and endowed with such an energetic will, to give way for any length of time to despair: he soon raised his head, and looked boldly around him. "I must go on," he said in a firm voice. But, at the moment when he prepared to continue his descent, he suddenly gave a start of surprise, and uttered a cry as he rushed quickly toward a black mass, to which he had hitherto paid but slight attention. We once again ask our readers' pardon for the improbability of the following detail; but we repeat that we are not explaining, but narrating, confining ourselves to telling the truth, without pretending to discuss the greater or less possibility of facts, which, however extraordinary they may appear, are exactly true.