With a quick motion the air-ship was turned, darting lower and off at a sharp angle to its former course, for the professor likewise saw what had attracted the notice of his younger nephew.
Scattered here and there throughout that secluded valley were human beings, nearly all of whom had sprung into sudden motion, doubtless amazed or frightened by the appearance of that oddly shaped air-demon.
Brief though that view had been, it was sufficiently long to show the professor houses of solid and substantial shape, cultivated plots, human beings, and a little river whose clear waters sparkled and flashed in the sunlight.
It was very hard to cut that view so short, but the professor had not lost all prudence, and he knew that danger to both vessel and passengers might follow a nearer intrusion upon the privacy of yonder armed people. Yet his face was fairly glowing with glad exultation as he brought the aerostat to a lower strata of air, shutting off all view from yonder valley, as it lay amid its encircling hills.
“Hurrah!” he cried, snatching off his cap and waving it enthusiastically, as the air-ship floated onward at ease. “At last! Found—we've discovered it at last! And all is true,—all is true!”
“Found what, uncle Phaeton?” asked Waldo, a bit doubtfully.
“The Lost City of the Aztecs, of course! Oh, glad day, glad day!”
“Unless—what if it should prove to be only a—a mirage, uncle Phaeton?” almost timidly ventured Bruno, a moment later.