The exertions which they had made in carrying and erecting the ladders had so wearied them, that, despite their empty stomachs, all three were able to sleep. Their slumber, however, was neither profound nor prolonged; and one and another of them awoke at intervals during the night and lay awake, reflecting upon the miserable fate that had befallen them, and the poor prospects now before them.

They were even without the ordinary consolation of knowing that they might find something to eat in the morning. Before they could have any breakfast, they knew they would first have to find it in the forest. They would have to search, find, and kill, before they could eat.

But they had reason now not only to be in doubt about procuring their breakfast, but their dinner and supper—in short, their whole future subsistence. Circumstances had become changed. The larder, hitherto amply provided by Caspar’s hunting skill, was now quite empty; and although he could soon have replenished it had their ammunition not been destroyed, it was now quite a different thing. Caspar’s power was gone along with his powder; and the deer and other quadrupeds, which were known to be yet numerous in the valley—to say nothing of the winged creatures that frequented it, could now smile at any attempt on the part of Caspar to trouble them any longer with his double-barrelled detonator. The gun would hereafter be as useless as a bar of iron.

Only one charge of powder for each barrel remained, and one more for Karl’s rifle. When these three should be fired off, not another shot might ever again be heard ringing through that silent valley, and waking the echoes of the surrounding cliffs.

But it had not yet entered their minds that they might be unable to kill any of the wild animals with which the place abounded. Had they thought so, they would have been unhappy indeed—perhaps so anxious as not to have slept another wink for that night. But they did not yet contemplate the future so despondingly. They hoped that, even without their guns, they would still be enabled to procure sufficient game for their support; and as they all lay awake, just before the breaking of the day, this became the subject of their conversation.

Ossaroo still felt full confidence in his bow and arrows; and should these fail, there was his fishing-net; and if that also were to draw blank, the experienced shikaree knew a score of other schemes for circumventing the beasts of the earth, the birds of the air, and the finny denizens of the water. Karl expressed his determination, as soon as spring should return, to commence cultivating certain edible roots and plants, which grew rather sparsely around, but, by the careful propagation of which, a crop might be procured of sufficient abundance. Moreover, they resolved t............