They rowed up to it and were not a little surprised to find that the whole mass was perfectly smooth like glass. Still more mystifying was it to see that there were bands at regular intervals extending 'from stem to starn,' as Tom expressed it, 'jest for all the world like the hull of a great boat.'
They rowed all round it, their wonderment and astonishment growing all the time. They computed that it must be considerably over a thousand feet in length, by, perhaps, a hundred feet in diameter.
Suddenly Gerald uttered a loud exclamation. Jack, glancing at him, saw that he was pointing to a place in the side of the mass and staring at it as though his eyes were about to start out of his head.
'What on earth's up, old man?' he asked in alarm. 'Have you got an attack of nerves again, or'——
'Jack!' cried Gerald, seizing his chum's arm, 'd-didn't you see—didn't you see them?'
'Them—what—who?' asked Jack, bewildered.
'People—men—moving about! I declare that I saw some men moving about inside the—the—thing!'
'You 're barmy, my good Gerald! This little astronomical raree-show has been too much for those imaginative nerves of yours. I see nothing. Perhaps you saw shadows thrown by some birds flying overhead.'
'No, oh no! A thousand times no! I tell you I saw people—two or three—moving about inside that smooth, slippery surface. They were very dim and shadowy, it is true, but they were there. I saw them just as one might see anything through very thick, semi-opaque glass. What does it mean? I tell you it's uncanny! There's some strange mystery about it all. This thing is not what it seems to be. What, in the name of all that is wonderful, does it mean?'
Jack looked at the smooth, shining sides which rose from the water and towered up high in the air. But he could see nothing to account for Gerald's wild words; and he then glanced inquiringly, with real alarm and trouble in his eyes, at Armeath.