The question is, will it be possible to clear them away?
Evidently it will be frightfully dangerous work.

One might manage to get one stone out, at a time, in safety.

But at any moment, the loosening of one stone might bring a number of others down, with a run; and anyone on this narrow staircase would be swept away like a straw." Meinik agreed as to the danger.
"Well, we need not think it over now, Meinik; but if we are really besieged, it is by this way that we must escape, if at all.

We must hope that we sha'n't be beset; but if we are, we must try here.

I would rather be killed, at once, by the fall of a stone on my head, than tortured to death." Meinik nodded, and they descended the stairs, put out the torches that they had used there, and returned along the ledge to the chamber where Harry was lying.
"So Meinik scared them away," the latter said, as Stanley sat down beside him.