beneath, where Tommy rushed to and fro, gambolling for joy. Here
we discovered a path which ran diagonally up the side of a cliff
which was nowhere more than fifty or sixty feet in height, and
possibly had once formed the shore of this land, or perhaps that
of a lake. Up this path we went, following the tracks of many
human feet, and reaching the crest of the cliff, looked about us,
basking as we did so in the beautiful morning sun, for the sky
was now clear of clouds and with that last awful effort, which
destroyed our ship, the cyclone had passed away.

We were standing on a plain down which ran a little stream of
good water whereof Tommy drank greedily, we following his
example. To the right and left of this plain, further than we
could see, stretched bushland over which towered many palms,
rather ragged now because of the lashing of the gale. Looking
inland we perceived that the ground sloped gently downwards,
ending at a distance of some miles in a large lake. Far out in
this lake something like the top of a mountain of a brown colour
rose above the water, and on the edge of it was what from that
distance appeared to be a tumbled ruin.

"This is all very interesting," I said to Bickley. "What do you
make of it?"

"I don't quite know. At first sight I should say that we are
standing on the lip of a crater of some vast extinct volcano.
Look how it curves to north and south and at the slope running
down to the lake."

I nodded.