Then Cheditafa crept forward and looked out. The great waves and the
roaring water were gone. There was no water to be seen, except the brook
which always ran at the bottom of the ravine, and which now seemed not
very much bigger than it had been that morning.
But the little brook was all there was in the ravine, except the bare
rocks, wet and glistening. There were no huts, no Rackbirds, nothing.
Even the vines and bushes which had been growing up the sides of the
stream were all gone. Not a weed, not a stick, not a clod of earth, was
left--nothing but a great, rocky ravine, washed bare and clean.
Edna Markham stepped suddenly forward and seized the captain by the arm.
"It was the lake," she cried. "The lake swept down that ravine!"
"Yes," said the captain, "it must have been. But listen--let us hear
more. Go on," he said to Cheditafa, who proceeded to tell how he and his
companions looked out for a long time, but they saw nor heard nothing of
any living creature. It would be easy enough for anybody to come back up
the ravine, but nobody came.
They had now grown so hungry that they could have almost eaten each
other. They felt they must get out of the cave and go to look for food.
It would be better to be shot than to sit there and starve.
Then they devised a plan by which they could get down. The smallest man
got out of the cave and let himself hang, holding to the outer edge of
the floor with his hands.
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