"Sheila's right, Winters. This is a pretty secluded spot. Chances are no one but us saw you crash. Even if they did, it'll take them quite a while to get up the river."
"We-e-e-ll—" hesitated Ramey. It was Red's obvious weakness that decided him. First aid was all right, but rest was what the scarlet-top needed. "If you think it's safe—" he said.
So they started across the field. Only Syd O'Brien, frowning uncertainly, ventured any unfavorable comment on the move. The sour-visaged twin offered Barrett a supporting arm but grumbled even as he did so.
"I don't like it!" he muttered forebodingly. "We're doing a foolish thing. And no good will come of it...."
What sort of camp Ramey Winters had expected to see, he did not clearly know. Something, perhaps, like the tented digs at Petra—Ramey had once visited the rose-red cliffs in Arabia—or the shacks at Ur-of-the-Chaldees. Archeology led men into strange, wild places. There would be ruins here, no doubt; Ramey dimly remembered having glimpsed gray buildings, or something of the sort, in the hectic moments preceding the crash.
But never in the world had he dreamed of seeing that which he actually beheld! Beyond the field sprawled a narrow grove of cane and palm; when they had eased their way through this, they stood on the edge of a wide, sluggish stream, once more looking out across flat terrain. And—
Ramey's eyes widened. Speech died at the incredible sight before him. Because the stream was not a stream, but a seven hundred foot moat, circling to left and right as far as the eye could see, spanned by a tremendous paved causeway of sandstone which arched into the central portico of a gigantic structure!
And what a structure! Roughly rectangular, at least one mile long on every side, comprised of one massive central building and numberless, smaller, flanking ones. The central edifice consisted of three stages connected by numerous outer staircases, decreasing in dimension as they rose, culminating in a lofty, pyramidal tower.
Red Barrett was popeyed, too. But the redthatch was never speechless. He croaked, "Holy potatoes, Ramey—what's that? Do you see what I see?"