They all, except the silent Kanakas, echoed his words. At any rate, this adventure promised to be out of the ordinary run of things, and there was just a chance that it might prove the stepping-stone to the way of escape for which they were always on the lookout.
It must have been high noon when they emerged from the rough, rocky ground in which the brush found root and entered upon scenery of a totally different character to any they had yet encountered on the island. The denseness of the brush, which had prevented their looking about them, had concealed from them the fact that in the past hour of their march they had been rising very rapidly.
They now found themselves in a barren sort of tableland, which looked sun-baked and drear. Its surface was seamed and cracked as if by volcanic action in the past. Almost directly ahead of them, as it appeared, towered the ragged steeple-like peaks which were such conspicuous objects from the sea.
But a closer inspection proved that, as a matter of fact, the peaks were separated from them by a gulf or chasm, which, as a remarkable natural phenomenon, merits some brief description. A few steps across the arid tableland brought them to its edge. Tom could not repress a shudder as he gazed into the fathomless rift. Seared by volcanic fires till its sides were of a reddish, angry hue, the abyss itself seemed to have likewise been the result of some tremendous convulsion of nature.
It cleft the island into two parts like a crack in a plate, for it extended clear across it from one side to the other. While they were gazing down into the depths of this horrid profundity, Monday gave a sudden cry, and pointed to a large rock of conical form which upreared itself like a huge obelisk on the edge of the precipice not far from where they stood.
“Matura Seral!” they heard him exclaim to Tuesday, who was gazing at the object with wrapped interest.
“You have seen that stone before, Monday?” asked the professor, reading aright the expression of the two South Sea natives.
“Yes, boss. Many time when here with whaler. They call him Matura Seral—in our language that mean Rocking Stone.”
“A rocking stone, eh?” echoed the professor, beaming behind his spectacles. “One of those truly interesting glacial freaks.”
He hastened forward, following Lake, who had already started for the stone, of the existence of which he seemed perfectly well aware. At any rate, it was not an unfamiliar object to him, for as he reached its side he laid one of his hands upon it, and, to the amazement of the rest, they saw the mighty mass of stone actually quiver and sway. Yet so perfectly poised was it on the edge of the chasm, where the same convulsion that had caused the rift had probably deposited it, that in the countless ages it had stood there it had not moved from its base.