He stumbled, as in a dream, to his blankets, and, wrapping them about him, fell into a stupor that was sleep and more.
As the balloon, in which Dave Tower and Jarvis rode, drifted toward the shore of the mainland, Dave, shading his eyes, watched the yellow gleam of the City of Gold darken to a purplish black, then back to a dull gray.
“Man, it’s gone. I ’ates to look,” groaned Jarvis. “It’s gone, the City of Gold.”
Dave had been expecting something like this to happen. “Probably the surface of some gigantic rock, polished by wind and rain, reflecting the rays of the sun,” was his mental comment. He did not have the heart to express his thoughts to Jarvis.
They drifted on. Suddenly Dave dived into the cabin and returned with a pair of powerful binoculars. He turned these on the spot where the shining City of Gold had been.
What he saw brought an exclamation to his lips. It died there unuttered. “After all,” he thought to himself, “it may be nothing, just nothing at all.”
What he had seen was still brownish gray in color, but instead of the flat even surface of a rock broken here and there by irregular fissures, he had seen innumerable squares, placed as regularly as the roofs of a house. “Nature does not build that way. Man must have had a hand in it. Here’s hoping.” Such were his mental comments as he saw land rise up to meet them. Were they nearing an inhabited land?
He did not have long to wait for the answer. As the balloon drifted in over the land, figures ran across the snow, in evident pursuit of the drifting “sausage.”
Jarvis, who had taken the glass, let out a roar. “It’s ’uman’s, me lad, ’uman bein’s it is, and if it’s no one but the bloody, bloomin’ ’eathen, I’ll be glad to see ’em.”