The length of the irregular descent to this point was between 70 and 80 feet.

On rounding the buttress, the upper end of the ladder presented itself, and now the question, between the boy and the old woman was to be decided.

I worked down to the edge of the shelf, and looked over into the pit, and, alas! the state of the remaining parts of the ladder was hopeless, owing partly to the decay of the sidepieces, and partly to the general absence of steps--a somewhat embarrassing feature under the circumstances.

A further investigation showed that for the 21 feet of ladder there were only seven steps, and these seven were not arranged as conveniently as they might have been, for two occurred at the very top, and the other five in a group at the bottom.

A branchless fir-tree had at some time fallen into the pit, and now lay in partial contact with the ruined ladder; and there were on the trunk various little knobs, which might possibly be of some use as a supplement to the rare steps of the ladder.