"Perhaps we might as well," agreed the Doctor, rising also. "When we get to the floor of the valley, we can find a good spot and turn in for the night."
The incongruity of his last words with the scene around made the Doctor smile. Overhead the sky still showed a narrow ribbon of blue. Across the valley the sunlight sparkled on the yellowish crags of the rocky wall. In the shadow, on the side down which they were climbing, the rocks now shone distinctly phosphorescent, with a peculiar waviness of outline.
"Not much like either night or day, is it?" added the Doctor. "We'll have to get used to that."
They started off again, and in another two hours found themselves going down a gentle rocky slope and out upon the floor of the valley.
"We're here at last," said the Big Business Man wearily.
The Very Young Man looked up the great, jagged precipice down which they had come, to where, far above, its edge against the strip of blue marked the surface of the ring.
"Some trip," he remarked. "I wouldn't want to tackle that every day."
"Four o'clock," said the Doctor, "the light up there looks just the same. I wonder what's happened to George."
Neither of his companions answered him. The Big Business Man lay stretched full length upon the ground near by, and the Very Young Man still stood looking up the precipice, lost in thought.
"What a nice climb going back," he suddenly remarked.