A week of steady slow travelling ensued, during which time they were continually journeying in and out among the mountains, following rough tracks, or roads as they were called, whose course had been suggested by that of the streams that wandered between the hills. Often enough the way was the dried-up bed of some torrent, amidst whose boulders the patient little Turkish horses picked their way in the most sure-footed manner.
It was along such a track as this that they were going in single file one day, for some particular reason that was apparently known only to the professor and Yussuf. They seemed to be deep down in the earth, for the rift along which they travelled was not above twenty feet wide, and on the one side the rock rose up nearly three thousand feet almost perpendicularly, while, on the other, where it was not perpendicular, it appeared to overhang.
Now and then it opened out a little more. Then it contracted, and seemed as if ere long the sides of the ravine would touch; but always when it came to this, it opened out directly after.
The heat was intense, for there was not a breath of wind. The gully was perfectly dry, and wherever there was a patch of greenery, it was fifty, a hundred, perhaps a thousand feet above their heads.
“How much farther is it to the village where we shall stop for the night?” said the old lawyer, pausing to mop his forehead.
“There is no village that we shall stop at, effendi,” said Yussuf quietly. “We go on a little more, and then we shall have reached the remains that Mr Preston wishes to see.”
“Bless my heart!” panted the old gentleman. “You are killing that boy.”
“I am quite well,” said Lawrence smiling, “only hot and thirsty. I want to see the ruins.”
“Oh, go on,” cried Mr Burne. “Don’t stop for me.”
Just then they were proceeding along a more open and sunny part when the professor’s horse in front suddenly shied, swerved round, and darted back, throwing his rider pretty heavily.