“I do not mean the sun of Pellucidar,” replied David; “but the sun of the outer world, the world from which I came.”
The others stood in silent awe, watching the edge of a blood red disc that seemed to be floating upon a gray ocean across whose reddened surface a brilliant pathway of red and gold led from the shoreline to the blazing orb, where the sea and sky seemed to meet.
XV
MADNESS
“Now,” said Stellara, “we can go no further;” nor indeed could they for east and west and north stretched a great, sullen sea and along the shore-line at their feet great ice cakes rose and fell with sullen roars and loud reports as the sea ground the churning mass.
For a long time David Innes, Emperor of Pellucidar, stood staring out across that vast and desolate waste of water. “What lies beyond?” he murmured to himself, and then, shaking his head, he turned away. “Come,” he said, “let us strike back for Sari.”
His companions received his words with shouts of joy. Smiles replaced the half troubled expressions that had marked their drawn faces since the moment that they had discovered that their beloved noonday sun was being left behind them.
With light steps, with laughter and joking, they faced the long, arduous journey that lay ahead of them.
During the second march, after they had turned back from the northern sea, Gura discovered a strange object to the left of their line of march.
“It looks as though it might be some queer sort of native hut,” she said.