He felt himself slipping down the mountain-side in the slimy shoot of the tunnel.

He made a desperate attempt to recover himself, but the treacherous drift of the loose debris rolled with him, as if he were part of its refuse, and, carrying him down, left him unconscious, but otherwise uninjured, in the bushes of the second ledge five hundred feet below.
When he recovered his senses the shouts and outcries above him had ceased.

He knew he was safe.

The ledge could only be reached by a circuitous route three miles away.

He knew, too, that if he could only reach a point of outcrop a hundred yards away he could easily descend to the stage road, down the gentle slope of the mountain hidden in a growth of hazel-brush.