THE MAGIC LABYRINTH

Frigate spoke up loudly.

"Look! I'm really the most experienced jumper! So I should be the one to do it! And I will!"

"You've gotten over your fear?"

"Hell, no! What it is... I don't have the guts to let someone else do it. You'd all think I was a coward, and if you didn't, I would."

He turned to Nur.

"I failed to act rationally and logically. I failed you."

Nur smiled grimly at his disciple.

"You didn't fail me. You failed yourself. However, there are so many aspects to consider... anyway, you should be the one to jump."

The little Moor went up to the titanthrop and raised his head under Joe's vast nose.

"It may not be necessary for anyone to jump. Joe, do you think that I weigh as much as your pack?"

Joe frowned, and he picked up Nur with one hand under his buttocks. He held him out at arm's length and said, "Not by a long thyot."

When Nur was back on the ground, he said, "Do you think you could throw your pack across to the other side?"

Joe fingered his receding chin. "Veil, maybe. Thay, I thee vhat you're getting at! Vhy don't I try it? It von't make no differenth if the pack'th over, there and ve're over here. Ve got to get acrothth anyvay."

He lifted the enormous pack above his head, walked to the edge, looked once, swung the pack twice, and heaved it. It fell a foot beyond the other edge.

Nur said, "I thought so. Joe, you throw me across now."

The titanthrop picked up the Moor with one hand against the little man's chest and one under his buttocks. Then he swung him back and forth, saying, "Vone, two, three!"

Nur arced across the abyss, landed on his feet a yard beyond the lip, and rolled. When he got up, he danced with joy.

Joe then cast Nur's lantern at the end of a rope. Nur caught it though he staggered back a little.

Nur came back out of the fog a few minutes later.

"I found a big boulder to tie the rope to, but I can't move it by myself! We'll need about five strong men!"

"Over you go!" Joe said, and he swung Burton back and forth. Though Burton wanted to shout that he was much heavier than Nur, he refrained. The gap looked twice as broad as it had up to that moment. Then he was shot up and outward while Joe yelled, "Vatch your athth, Dick!" and his laughter bellowed. The many-thousands-feet abyss was beneath him for a frightening second, and then Burton struck on his feet and was propelled forward. He rolled, but even so the rock thumped him hard.

A moment later, his pack followed. Joe then threw all the packs across, and he lifted Frigate and hurled him on over.

One by one, they followed until Ah Qaaq and Joe were the only ones left. Shouting, "Tho long, fatty!" the titanthrop hurled the May an. He hit closer to the edge than anyone but had a foot to spare.

"Now vhat?" Joe yelled.

Burton said, "There's a big boulder that must weigh almost as much as you, Joe. Go roll it up here, and then tie the end of the rope around it."

"That'th half a mile back," Joe said. "Vhy didn't you all thtay here and help me before you vent over?"

"Didn't want you to be too tired from moving the rock to throw us across."

"Jethuth H. Chritht! I do all the hard vork."

He disappeared with his lantern into the fog.

Some of them were bruised, and with torn skin, but all were able to do their share. They followed Nur to the boulder and, after a long rest, they began rolling it over the flat stone surface of the plateau. It wasn't easy since the rock was irregularly shaped and probably weighed more than all of them together.

Rests were frequent because of the thin air. They finally got it near the edge and then collapsed for a while.

A minute later, Joe rolled the boulder from the mists.

"I vath hoping I could beat you runtth to it," he shouted. "I vould've, too, if my boulder had been ath near am yourth." He sat down to pant.

Blessed Croomes complained that she had been cheated out of the chance to jump and so demonstrate her faith in the Lord.

"Nobody stopped you," Frigate said. "Although, to tell the truth, I was disappointed, too. The only thing that kept me back was that, if I did miss, the group would be just that much weaker. Maybe I'll try it anyway just to show I can do it."

He looked at Tai-Peng, and they both burst out laughing.

"You ain't fooling me none," Croomes said in English. "You two men was skeered to do what a woman wasn't afraid to do."

"That's the difference between you and us," Frigate said. "We're not crazy."

When they all were restored, they tied the ends of the long heavy rope around the boulders and chocked them with smaller stones. Joe let himself down over the edge backward, grabbed the sagging rope, and hand-over-handed across it. His friends seized the rope to insure that the boulder wasn't moved by his enormous weight, though it wasn't necessary. When he got quickly to the edge, some left the rope and helped him get up over the edge.

"Boy, I hope I never have to do that again!" he gasped. "I never told you guyth before, but vhen I get on a real high plathe, I alvayth have an urge to jump off."

43

GETTING TO THE LEDGE THAT LED ALONG THE MOUNTAINSIDE to the sea took them ten hours. .

"Thith ith narrow enough now, but vhen ve get to the plathe vhere thothe two Egyptianth fell, man, that'th thomething!"

Several thousand feet below was a mass of clouds. They spent eight hours sleeping and continued after they'd had their monotonous breakfast. Though the Egyptians had crawled along this trail, the group faced the rock and edged along, their fingers gripping the holes and small outthrusts of the rock.

The air became somewhat warmer. Here the water still had heat to give up after its long wandering through the arctic regions and its passage through the polar sea.

The ledge was safely traversed: They went on another plateau and came to where, as Joe had said, they would be near the sea. He walked painfully to the edge of the mountain and pointed his lantern beam down on still another ledge.

It began about six feet below the edge of the cliff, was about two feet wide, and continued downward with the same breadth until it was lost in the thin clouds. It sloped at a 45-degree angle to the horizon or would have if there had been one.

"We'll have to abandon some stuff and make our packs smaller," Burton said. "Ther£ isn't enough room for them otherwise."

"Yeah, I know. Vhat vorrieth me ith that the Ethicalth might've cut the ledge in half, Jethuth, Dick! Vhat if they found the cave down there?"

"Then we'll have to trust to the inflatable kayak you're carrying to get two of us to the tower. I've mentioned that before."

"Yeah, I know. But that ain't going to keep me from talking about it. It helpth relieve my tenthyon."

The sun never came above the top of the circling mountains. Despite this, there was a twilight illumination.

"I fell off the ledge before I got too far," Joe said. "Tho I don't know how far the path—thome path!—goeth. It may take a whole day, maybe more, to get to the bottom."

"Tom Mix said that Paheri, the Egyptian, told him that they had to stop once and eat before they got to the bottom," Burton said. "That doesn't mean much, though. The journey was fatiguing, and so they'd get hungry sooner than they usually would."

They found a shallow cave. Joe, with the help of the others, rolled a big boulder to partially block the entrance and keep the wind out. They retreated to it to eat their meal. Two lamps kept the hollow bright, but they weren't enough to cheer them. What they needed was a fire, the ancient shifting brightness and crackling warmth which had cheered their Old Stone Age ancestors and every generation since.

Tai-Peng was the only one in high spirits. He told them stories of his antics and those of the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cups, the companions of his old age, and cracked many a Chinese joke. Though the latter couldn't adequately be translated through Esperanto, they were good enough to cause some, and especially Joe Miller, to shout with laughter and pound their thighs. Then Tai-Peng composed some on-the-spot poems and concluded by brandishing his sword at the tower somewhere ahead of them.