At last I felt him pull hard on the rope.

I held it, and put my foot on the first spike.

I don't know that I should have found it so very easy in the dark to get up by the spikes--it was almost blackfellows' work, when they put their big toe into a notch cut in the smooth stem of a gum tree that runs a hundred feet without a branch, and climb up the outside of it--but Jim and I had often practised this sort of climbing when we were boys, and were both pretty good at it.

As for Starlight, he had been to sea when he was young, and could climb like a cat.
When I got to the top I could just see his head above the wall.

The rope was fastened well to the top spike, which was driven almost to the head into the wall.