“Professor,” he remarked solemnly, “it looks to me as if we had slept clean into the next day.”
“How so?” asked the Professor, vacantly.
“Both our watches are run down,” replied Kearns. “That’s one point. When we entered the cave it was half past three o’clock in the afternoon. From the sun I’d say it’s now about one o’clock. As time hasn’t the habit of going backward, I’d reach the conclusion that this must be the afternoon of the following day.”
“Really, this is most astonishing!” exclaimed the Professor, apparently quite shocked at the idea that he should have thus slumbered for nearly twenty-four hours.
They worked their way around the base of a hill, over ground rough and stony and partially covered with trees and undergrowth. Before long they emerged upon comparatively open ground and then a puzzling feature presented itself to their attention. When led to the cave by the Doctor, he had taken them miles through scrub growth and over rough land. Now, after traveling a comparatively short distance they had emerged into the open and before them stretched fields under cultivation, while some three-quarters of a mile away lay a broad, white road. This was decidedly a much shorter cut than the path the Doctor had taken. But how was it that he had not known of it? It was really puzzling!
“There’s the road!” exclaimed Dean, pointing to the broad, white line in the distance.
“Yes,” assented Kearns, musingly, “but is that the road we are looking for? This doesn’t seem to be the way we came. The lay of the land is different.”
“Perhaps we have come out of the brush in a different direction,” suggested Dean.
“We certainly must have,” replied Kearns. “Well, right or wrong, there’s nothing to do but to make for that road before us.”
The wisdom of this view was apparent, and they accordingly made their way around the fields under cultivation and finally—hot and tired—gained the road. Up and down it they looked and perceived in the distance, some two miles away to the left, the outlines of what appeared to be a goodly-sized town.