“It is a horse feeding,” said Yussuf smiling. “They are over yonder.”
The next minute they were by the projecting rock which cut the shelf in two.
Yussuf went close to the edge, rested his hand upon the stone, and peered over.
“Only a bird could get round there,” he said, shaking his head, and going to the slope above the ledge. “We must climb over.”
Mr Burne looked up at the place where they were expected to climb with a lugubrious expression of countenance; but he jumped up directly, quite willing to make the attempt, and followed his companions.
The climb proved less difficult than it seemed, and on reaching the top, some fifty feet above where they had previously stood, there below them stood Ali Baba, cropping the tender shoots of a large bush, and as soon as he caught sight of them he set up a loud neigh.
There was no sign of Lawrence, though, until they had descended to the shelf on that side, when they found him lying upon the short growth fast asleep, evidently tired out with waiting.
“My dear boy!” was on the professor’s lips; and he was about to start forward, but Yussuf caught him roughly by the shoulder, and held him back.
“Hist! Look!” he whispered.
Both the professor and Mr Burne stood chilled to the heart, for they could see the head of an ugly grey coarsely scaled viper raised above its coil, and gazing at them threateningly, after having been evidently alarmed by the noise which they had made.