hardly perceivable from the opposite side of the watercourse. While in the passage they had been steadily mounting upward, and now, Elsie saw, were about half the height of the lower crater peak. And then as they turned a rounded corner she came, still mounting, suddenly in sight of the legendary Baròlin rock.
Yes, it was exactly as King Tommy of Yoolaman had described it—a great black bluff boulder, fashioned by Nature into the rude semblance of a human head, the back part of which, being somewhat corrugated and affording a deposit ground for drift and windblown particles, had become overgrown with grey hanging lichen that in the distance gave the appearance of an old man's hair. Strangely solemn and impressive did this rough-hewn image seem, set in this desolate grandeur of mountain and scrub. They were within a few yards of the rock. Here the ledge widened out into a sort of plateau, where grew some dark green shrubs with a strong scented yellow flower which she did not know, and a quantity of the sage green aromatic plant that abounded at Point Row. Out of the precipice behind waved a profusion of feathery rock-lilies, and there were many other flowers and plants making the spot a mass of colour and bloom. She noticed now for the first time— perhaps because it cut the vegetation—that there was a distinct track leading right up to the rock. Trant remarked the direction of her eyes. "That must have been made by the Blacks on their way to the sacred ceremony. Would you like to see a Bora ground, Miss Valliant? There's a sort of cave behind that rock."
Elsie followed him, excited by the adventure. The rock of the human head stood out from the mountain behind it. Between it and the precipice was a shadowy space, and here the wall scooped inward. Trant put out his hand and took Elsie's. "Take care, it is dark, and you may stumble."
She suffered herself to be guided along what seemed a narrow gallery. Presently she knew that they were in a cave, and as they moved gropingly on, she felt by the rush of air, and a certain sense of space and dryness, that the
