We now saw the necessity of returning to the air ship for sacks to remove the treasure, and it became at once apparent that it would be impossible to haul it up the precipice. This led to a consultation. The ledge immediately below was rough and shelving, and unfit for a landing, but the vessel must be anchored there in order to receive her cargo. The place where we were standing was barely wide enough for a footing. "I have it," said Torrence; "we must bring her to a standstill underneath without landing." It was the only thing we could do, and although the face of the cliff was an awkward halting ground, we must manage it. And so we returned for ropes and gunny-bags, and a boathook, which we thought would be useful. In less than half an hour all was ready, and while I lowered the precious cargo down to Torrence, who stood ready to receive it, and pull it out from the face of the cliff with his hook to a position where it could be lowered into the vessel, the air ship stood balanced in mid-air about forty feet beneath where I was working. Bag after bag was swung aboard and stowed away, until Torrence called out that it would be unwise to load with any more. I then let myself down and scrambled aboard, when we rose gently again to our former level, where we landed for another rest. "Is she as buoyant as ever?" I asked him, meaning the ship. "Quite!" he answered; "and we must surely have several millions in gold quartz aboard of her." When we had rested for an hour we got up to go, but Torrence said he had an impression of having seen a nugget of such extraordinary size that he should not like to leave without making an effort to get it, being anxious to carry it home for exhibition. And so we decided to crawl down the cliff once more. We found the nugget, but it was difficult to loosen from the mass, so that we tugged and worked away for quite a while, and were about to give it up, when on straightening my back for a rest I looked out over the plain and saw a sight that startled me. Far down among the foothills a great living mass was moving toward us. I called to my brother, and we both stood watching it in wonder. We had left our glasses above, but it was not many minutes before we decided that it was a crowd of natives coming our way; possibly they had followed the line of our flight from the city, hoping to overtake us in the mountains, believing that we would halt there. We could form no idea of their number, though evidently it was large. "It’s the rabble of that city!" exclaimed Torrence. "They’ve been overcome with curiosity, and no doubt think to capture us among these hills. It would be interesting to see what they want, but the vessel will be the safest place for us. There’s no telling what superstition and curiosity may lead to. Even without hostile intention, such a crowd might easily overpower and destroy us in a good-humored effort to investigate!"