Here it sloped gradually for a few feet.

I took off my shoes and went down to the edge.

Below, some ten feet, was a ledge, on to which with care I could get down, but below that was a sheer fall of some fifty feet.

As a means of escape it was hopeless, but it struck me that if an attack was made I might slip away and get on to the ledge.

Once there I could not be seen except by a person standing where I now was, just on the edge of the slope, a spot to which it was very unlikely that anyone would come.
"The thought gave me a shadow of hope, and, returning to the upper end of the platform, I lay down, and in spite of the hardness of the rock, was soon asleep.