Joe broke their silence.
"That noithe ith the firtht cataract ve'll come to. It'th big ath hell, but it'th only a fart in a vindthtorm compared to the one that cometh from the cave. But ve got a long hard vay to go before ve get to that."
They were robed and hooded in heavy clothes and looked like ghosts in the thin fog. Cold moisture collected on their faces and hands.
Burton gave orders, and the Post No Bills was tied to the base of the grailstone. They began unloading, finishing in an hour. After they had set all their grails on the stone, they waited for it to discharge. An hour passed, the stone erupted; the echoes were a long time stopping.
"Eat hearty," Burton said. "This will be our last warm meal."
"Maybe our last supper, too," Aphra Behn said, but she laughed.
"Thith plathe lookth like purgatory," Joe Miller said. "It ain't tho bad. Vait until you get to hell."
"I've been there and back many times," Burton said.
They made a big fire of dried wood they'd been carrying in the boat and sat with their backs to the base of the stone while it warmed them. Joe Miller told some of his titanthrop jokes, mostly about the traveling trader and the bear hunter's wife and two daughters. Nut related some of his Sufi tales, designed to teach people to think differently, but light and amusing. Burton told some stories from the Thousand and One Nights. Alice told some paradoxical tales which Dr. Dodgson had made up for her when she was eight years old. Then Blessed Croomes got them to singing hymns, but she became angry when Burton inserted slightly off-color lines.
All in all, it was fun, and they went to bed feeling cheerier. The booze also helped to raise their spirits.
When they arose, they ate breakfast over another fire. Then they loaded up with their heavy burdens and started off. Before the stone and the boat disappeared in the mists, Burton turned for a last look. There were his final links with the world he'd known, though not always loved, so long. Would he ever see a boat, a grailstone again? Would he soon never see anything?
He heard Joe's lion-thunderish voice, and he turned away.
"Holy thmoke! Look at what I got to carry! I got three timeth ath much ath the retht of you. My name ain't Thamthon, you know."
Turpin laughed and said, "You're a white nigger with a big nose."
"I ain't no nigger," Joe said. "I'm a packhorthe, a beatht of burden."
"Vhat'th the differenthe?" Turpin said, and he ran laughing as Joe swung a gigantic fist at him. The towering backpack unbalanced him, and he fell flat on his face.
Laughter rose up and bounced off the canyon walls.
"I'll wager that's the first time the mountains have made merry," Burton said.
After a little while though, they became silent, and they trudged onward looking like lost souls in a circle of the Inferno.
They soon came to the first cataract, the little one, Joe Miller said. It was so broad that they couldn't see the other end, but it had to be ten times the width of Victoria Falls. At least, it seemed so. It fell from the mists above in a roar that made conversation impossible even if they shouted in each others' ears.
The titanthrop led the way. They climbed upward past the waterfall, spray now and then falling over them. Their progress was slow but not overly perilous. When they had gotten to perhaps two hundred feet up, they stopped on a broad ledge. Here they let down their burdens while Joe climbed on up. After an hour, the end of a long rope fell through the fog like a dead snake. They tied the packs, two at a time, to the rope, and Joe pulled them bumping and swinging into the mists. When all the packs were on top of the plateau, they worked their way carefully up the cliff. At the top they resumed their burdens and walked on, stopping frequently for rests.
Tai-Peng related stories of his adventures in his native land and got them to laughing. They came to another cataract and quit laughing. They scaled the cliff beside it, and then decided to call it a day. Joe poured some grain alcohol over wood— a frightful waste of good booze, he said—and they had a fire. Four days later, they were out of wood. But the last of the "small" cataracts was behind them.
After walking for an hour over a stone-strewn gently sloping-upward tableland, they came to the foot of another cliff.
"Thith ith it," Joe said excitedly. "Thithe ith the plathe vhere ve found a rope made out of clothth. It vath left by Ekth."
Burton cast his lamp beam upward. The first ten feet was rough. From there on up, for as far as he could see, which wasn't far, there was a smooth-as-ice verticality.
"Where's the rope?"
"Damn it, it vath here!"
They went out in two parties, each going in opposite directions along the base of the cliff. Their electric lamps were beamed ahead of them, and they traced their fingers along the stone. But each returned without finding the rope.
"Thon of a bitch! Vhat happened?"
"I'd say that the other Ethicals found it and removed it," Burton said.
After some talk, they decided to spend the night at the base of the cliff. They ate vegetables which the grails had provided and dried fish and bread. They were already sick of their diet, but they didn't complain. At least, the liquor warmed them up. But that would be gone in a few days.
"I brought along a few bottleth of beer," Joe said. "Ve can have one last party vith them."
Burton grimaced. He disliked beer.
In the morning the two groups went out along the base again. Burton was with the one that went eastward or what he thought was that way. It was difficult to tell direction in this misty twilight. They came to the bottom of the huge cataract. There was no way for them to, get across to the other side.
When they got back, Burton spoke to Joe.
"Was the rope on the left or right side of The River?"
Joe, illumined in the beam of a lamp, said, "Thith thide."
"It seems to me that X might have left another rope on the right side. After all, he wouldn't know if his henchmen would come up the right or left side."
"Veil, it theemth to me that ve came up the left thide. But it'th been tho many yearth. Hell, I can't be thyure!"
The little big-nosed dark Moor, Nur el-Nlusafir, said, "Unless we can get to the other side—and it doesn't seem possible—the question is irrelevant. I went westward, and I think that I may be able to get up to the plateau."
After breakfast, the entire group walked five miles or so to the corner of the mountain and the cliff walls. These met at an approximately 36-degree angle as if they were the walls of a very badly built room. Nur tied a very slender rope around his waist.
"Joe says that it's about a thousand feet up to the plateau. That's his estimate based on his memory of its height, and at that time Joe didn't know the English system of measurement. It might be less than he remembers. Let's hope so."
"If you get too tired, come back down," Joe said. "I don't vant you to fall."
"Then stand back so I won't strike you," Nur said, smiling. "It would hurt my conscience if I hit you and both of us died. Though I think that you wouldn't be injured any more than if an eagle defecated on you."
"It vould hurt me a lot," Joe said. "Eagleth and their crap vere taboo to my people."
"Think of me as a sparrow."
Nur went to the angle and braced himself, his back against one wall and his feet against the other. He slowly worked his way up the angle, holding his feet against one wall, the left foot extended a few inches more than the right. When his footing was secure, he slid his back upward as far as he could before losing his bracing. Then he would slide one foot up until his knee was almost to his chin. Keeping the one foot against the wall, he would slowly work the other up. Then he would slide his back up, and repeat the same maneuvers.