CHAPTER I
ON THE BROAD HIGHWAY
A-a-a-h!
A prolonged sigh swelled from Dean’s lips.
“Thunder and Mars!” Kearns raised himself languidly on his elbow.
It seemed to them both that they had been sleeping for quite a long time—an unusually long time.
Where was the Doctor?
The sunlight was streaming down upon their faces. They were no longer in the cave, but were lying in the outer air upon the grass, their rugs still wrapped about them. A few steps away were two men, apparently laborers, who stood contemplating them with looks of wonderment not unmingled with alarm.
Slowly and unsteadily, Kearns rose to his feet. Dean followed his example. Both seemed weak and dizzy.
Kearns turned a pair of blinking eyes toward the laborers.
“How did we get here?” he asked with the husky voice of a man with a bad cold.