Perhaps my rejoicing was premature, for the tunnel was nearly twenty feet from the floor and had, as I have said, below it a great projection; but it looked like a way out and was, in any case, a safe hiding-place, so I scrambled down, resolved to reach it or break my neck in the attempt. Bukári was highly elated when I told him of my discovery, and encouraged me with the suggestion that the slaves who disappeared might have escaped that way; so, throwing round my neck the coil of rope (which I had prudently brought with me) I commenced to clamber up the face of the wall under the projection. As I worked my way up, inch by inch, I always seemed to have reached the very highest point that was possible, and as I clung, with my fingers hooked in the treacherous moss, and my toes lodged on some almost invisible projection, I looked up at the space that yet remained above me with a feeling of despair. And yet, inch by inch, with incredible labour, I crept up, slowly reducing the space, until, at length, I came to the promontory that projected forward like some great bracket or corbel. To scale this seemed an utter impossibility, for it stood out above my head with its surface at an angle of nearly thirty degrees from the vertical, and it looked as if I must fail after all within a few feet of safety. After a brief rest I now began to edge away to one side, and in this way was able to hoist myself upwards two or three feet, but in a direction slanting somewhat away from the opening of the tunnel. Still, it was something to attain a higher level, and I crept on, streaming with perspiration and faint from the want of food, digging my fingers into the moss and taking advantage of every cranny and projecting crystal of quartz, until at last my eyes came on to the level of the floor of the tunnel. But the tunnel was now several feet away to my left, and to reach it I must cling somehow to the overhanging rock. The thing seemed impracticable, but yet each time I changed my foothold or the grip of my bruised and aching fingers, I came somehow a little nearer, until my shoulders overhung my feet by two or three inches. At length I lodged one hand on the edge of the tunnel floor and could look into the dark cavity; then I shifted the other hand so that it gripped the corner of the opening. After a moment’s rest I managed to slide my left hand a little along the floor until it caught a projecting stone, and letting go with my right, quickly slipped it on to the same projection. Here I remained fixed, with my arms reached into the opening, and one foot holding on to a clump of moss with the toes, while with the other foot I felt about vainly for a new foothold.