"We're on the wrong track," I said, stopping short. "We didn't come down as steep a slope as this last night."
"You're right there, Carstairs. We didn't," Cumshaw said, stopping short and looking about him with a puzzled air.
"Why not keep right on?" Moira advised. "It's just possible that we're working back to the track."
"We'll give it a chance," I said, after chewing the suggestion over in silence for a few minutes. "We'll keep on for ten minutes or so, and if it gets any worse we can always go back."
The ground became rougher at every step and finally in despair I called a halt. The sun was well up by this and the mist had cleared away from the hills, though filmy vapors still lingered in what I knew must be the hollows. In front was a causeway, strewn with boulders, and beyond that what I took to be a sea of wattles. I could see no use in progressing further in that direction, and I said so as succinctly as I could. Cumshaw was inclined to argue, but the consensus of opinion was against him. The outcome of it was that we decided to retrace our steps. Before we did so I suggested looking about for something that would give us an indication of our present position.
I stumbled on it quite by accident. Another step further and I would have fallen down the funnel-shaped opening that gaped at my feet. I drew back just in time to save myself, and for the second time that morning my heart gave a jump. To think that we had gone so close to missing it altogether! The thing, so to speak, had lain at our feet all the time. I turned about and searched the landscape for my companions. Moira was visible in the near distance; the wattles had swallowed Cumshaw.
"Cumshaw, Moira, I've found it!" I called at the top of my voice.
Moira whipped round at the sound of my voice. I waved to her and she came running towards me. A second later I saw Cumshaw come out of the shadows, and I yelled at him with all the power of my lungs. I don't know what he must have thought of the yelling, dancing, frantically waving figure that caught his eye. He must have fancied for a moment that I had gone mad. Then, in a flash, so he says, the truth dawned on him, and he in his turn sprinted towards me, the one idea uppermost in his mind being that the valley must have been found. At the same instant my soul was singing "Eureka!" and Moira was weeping and laughing at the same time.
"Cumshaw," I cried, as he came within speaking distance, "if that's not the funnel that your father and Bradby left the valley by you can call me a goggle-eyed Chinaman."
And then somehow we all seemed to be talking together.