muddied and crumpled, as though the book had been doubled back at that
part. This, I found out from Tonnison, was actually as he had discovered
it, and the damage was due, probably, to the fall of masonry upon the
opened part. Curiously enough, the book was fairly dry, which I
attributed to its having been so securely buried among the ruins.

Having put the volume away safely, I turned-to and gave Tonnison a hand
with his self-imposed task of excavating; yet, though we put in over an
hour's hard work, turning over the whole of the upheaped stones and
rubbish, we came upon nothing more than some fragments of broken wood,
that might have been parts of a desk or table; and so we gave up
searching, and went back along the rock, once more to the safety of
the land.

The next thing we did was to make a complete tour of the tremendous
chasm, which we were able to observe was in the form of an almost
perfect circle, save for where the ruin-crowned spur of rock jutted out,
spoiling its symmetry.

The abyss was, as Tonnison put it, like nothing so much as a gigantic
well or pit going sheer down into the bowels of the earth.

For some time longer, we continued to stare about us, and then, noticing
that there was a clear space away to the north of the chasm, we bent our
steps in that direction.

Here, distant from the mouth of the mighty pit by some hundreds of
yards, we came upon a great lake of silent water--silent, that is, save
in one place where there was a continuous bubbling and gurgling.