Herman Melville: Typee

9. CHAPTER NINE (continued)

Our progress along the steep watercourse was necessarily slow, and by noon we had not advanced more than a mile. It was somewhere near this part of the day that the noise of falling waters, which we had faintly caught in the early morning, became more distinct; and it was not long before we were arrested by a rocky precipice of nearly a hundred feet in depth, that extended all across the channel, and over which the wild stream poured in an unbroken leap. On each hand the walls of the ravine presented their overhanging sides both above and below the fall, affording no means whatever of avoiding the cataract by taking a circuit round it.

'What's to be done now, Toby?' said I.

'Why,' rejoined he, 'as we cannot retreat, I suppose we must keep shoving along.'

'Very true, my dear Toby; but how do you purpose accomplishing that desirable object?'

'By jumping from the top of the fall, if there be no other way,' unhesitatingly replied my companion: 'it will be much the quickest way of descent; but as you are not quite as active as I am, we will try some other way.'

And, so saying, he crept cautiously along and peered over into the abyss, while I remained wondering by what possible means we could overcome this apparently insuperable obstruction. As soon as my companion had completed his survey, I eagerly inquired the result.

'The result of my observations you wish to know, do you?' began Toby, deliberately, with one of his odd looks: 'well, my lad, the result of my observations is very quickly imparted. It is at present uncertain which of our two necks will have the honour to be broken first; but about a hundred to one would be a fair bet in favour of the man who takes the first jump.'

'Then it is an impossible thing, is it?' inquired I gloomily.