Then as he looked over he uttered a cry that quickly brought Fred, Clarence, and Cocoeni to his side.
They were overlooking a vast desert that spread far as the eye could take in, as bare and tawny as the great Sahara.
This wall had been built upon a giddy precipice, without a break or a ledge. As they stretched over they could have dropped a stone without striking anything until it reached the bottom, four thousand feet at least from where they stood.
The air was bracing, and would have been cool, only for the intense waves of heat that were wafted up from the burning sands.
“Here terminates our journey, I expect, Ned?” said Fred, in mildly interrogative tones.
Ned had pulled out his field-glass, and was scanning the far-distant horizon through it, therefore he did not answer at once. It was a splendid instrument, and of exceptionally far-reaching power of lens.
“Tell me, Fred and Clarence, what you see over there?” he asked, handing the glass to his companions. “Look carefully before you speak, and let Cocoeni have a peep as well first, before you open your mouths.”
When Fred had looked through it for some moments he handed the glass to Clarence, who in his turn gave it to Cocoeni in silence. Then the three friends glanced at each other dubiously.
“Well, Cocoeni, you say first what you saw.”
“What white man calls mirage, and black man calls devil-land,” replied Cocoeni, grimly.