And indeed it was not difficult for Mr. Blakeney and the two boys, staring in front of them, to picture what had happened. The mountain walls, through which a narrow cleft--Poeskop’s poort or pass--had, not three years before, led, had fallen in. Some mighty convulsion of nature had so shattered and shaken them that they had collapsed; and where, as the Bushman explained, he had passed through between beetling walls, a solid barrier of rock and boulders, strangely riven and tumbled, now rose in a vast mass before them to a height of at least four hundred feet. Poeskop stood, with scared and fallen face, staring at this strange and utterly unlooked-for obstacle. "What is to be done now?" he said ruefully, "and how are we to get at the gold? We cannot climb that cliff; and if we could, we should not be able to get down on the other side." "When you passed through the poort here, which is now blocked up," said Mr. Blakeney, "how far did you go before you came out into the Gold Kloof?" "About a quarter of a mile, baas," answered Poeskop. "And do you mean to tell me," pursued his interrogator, "that there is no other passage into the kloof?" "None whatever, baas," answered the Bushman. "I know it well--every yard, every foot of it. In the old days, before this thing happened"--he pointed to the barrier of cliff and _debris_--"you walked through a quarter of a mile of narrow poort, in some places no more than ten feet across, and came out into the kloof. The kloof is shut in by high walls, much higher in some parts than this, and there is no other way of getting in or out. Of that I am as certain as I am that in one hour it will be nightfall. If we had wings, we could get into the valley. Without them, I don’t think it is possible. The cliffs are high and sheer; not even a baboon could get down them." They went sorrowfully back to the wagon, outspanned for the night, and, after supper, sat discussing long and earnestly the solution of the difficult problem that lay before them. "I know!" cried Guy suddenly. "We’ll have to make a rope-ladder, or a ladder of some sort. We’re bound to get into this place. I know my father would, if he were here!" Mr. Blakeney smiled at the lad’s enthusiasm. "Rather a large order, isn’t it?" he said. "Five or six hundred feet of rope-ladder! And where’s the rope to come from? We may have as much as a couple of hundred feet on the wagon. I brought that much, thinking we might need it; but for the rest, I for one don’t see my way to it." "I know, baas!" cried Poeskop. "We can do it; but it will take time. There is plenty game round about here. We can shoot elands, and hartebeest, and zebras, and blue wildebeest, and cut riems and bray them; and there is your rope-ladder."