"Think you, Mr. Popham," murmured the professor, his voice awakening us as from a trance, "that all yon splendor, which has been in these skies for ages upon ages, was created for the enjoyment of no living thing? If so, you are wrong. There are now, as there have always been, beings with an intelligence capable of appreciating all this magnificent profusion of light and color. But enough. We have looked down into the crater and up into the heavens; suppose we turn our eyes another way and see what there is to offer."
He faced about as he spoke, and gazed down the bare rocky slope of the volcano and off across an equally bare and forbidding plain.
"No trees, no water, no life of any kind," muttered Meigs querulously.
"There is a bright spot over there," said Quinn, shading his eyes and pointing.
Our eyes followed his finger and encountered a glittering object on a slight elevation. As we gazed, the object, whatever it was, slowly vanished.
"We might investigate that," suggested Popham excitedly. "Perhaps it was a Mercurial wearing a sort of armor to protect him from the heat. It may be that there are people here, and that they live underground."
He would have started forthwith, but the professor stretched out a hand and detained him.
"Just a moment," said Quinn. "Before we get too far from the car, let me make sure that all of you are sufficiently immune from the heat. Do you feel that you are fully protected in that respect, gentlemen?"
So far as I was personally concerned, I had not felt the slightest inconvenience from the sun's rays. I declared as much, and the others likewise so expressed themselves.
"There's another one of the things!" spoke up Meigs, pointing in another direction.