Max said nothing, but only fixed his beautiful eyes hopefully on the cocoa jug.
And all the time the yacht was speeding along the underground stream, beneath the vast arch of the underground cavern.
'The worst of it is we may be going ever so far away from where we want to get to,' said Philip, when Max had undertaken the steering again.
'All roads,' remarked the parrot, 'lead to Somnolentia. And besides the ship is travelling due north—at least so the ship's compass states, and I have no reason as yet for doubting its word.'
'Hullo!' cried more than one voice, and the ship shot out of the dark cavern into a sheet of water that lay spread under a white dome. The stream that had brought them there seemed to run across one side of this pool. Max, directed by the parrot, steered the ship into smooth water, where she lay at rest at last in the very middle of this great underground lake.
'This isn't out of The Cruise of the Teal,' said Philip. 'They must have shut that book.'
'I think it's out of a book about Mexico or Peru or Ingots or some geographical place,' said Lucy; 'it had a green-and-gold binding. I think you used it for the other end of the outer justice court. And if you did, this dome's solid silver, and there's a hole in it, and under this dome there's untold treasure in gold incas.'
'What's incas?'
'Gold bars, I believe,' said Lucy; 'and Mexicans come down through the hole in the roof and get it, and when enemies come they flood it with water. It's flooded now,' she added unnecessarily.
'I wish adventures had never been invented,' said Brenda. 'No, dear Lucy, I am not whining. Far from it. But if a dear little dog might suggest it, we should all be better in a home, should we not?'