Explore "When the Birds Fly South" by Stanton A. Coblentz on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
How we accomplished the descent is one of the mysteries that will always be associated in my mind with the Valley of Sobul. Even for the unhampered traveler, as I was to learn, the grades were perilous; but for climbers impeded with the weight of a disabled man, they must have been well-nigh impossible. Unfortunately, I have little recollection of what happened on the way down; I believe that I was half delirious from hunger and pain; I have indistinct memories of muttering and screaming strange things, and at best I can recall that we trailed as in a dream along endless spiral paths by the brink of bottomless chasms.
It was late twilight when I was aroused to a dim awareness of myself. Evidently our party had halted, for I was lying on the ground; on all sides of me, unfamiliar voices were chattering. Although still too listless to care much what happened, I opened my eyes and observed a crowd of dusky forms moving shadow-like through the gloom. In their midst, perhaps a hundred paces to my right, a great golden bonfire was blazing, casting a fantastic wavy illumination as it glared and crackled; and by its light I thought I could distinguish a score or more of little cabin-like structures.