Jenks glanced at her sharply.

She was not looking at the islands, but at a curious hollow, a quarry-like depression beneath them to the right, distant about three hundred yards and not far removed from the small plateau containing the well, though isolated from it by the south angle of the main cliff.
Here, in a great circle, there was not a vestige of grass, shrub, or tree, nothing save brown rock and sand.

At first the sailor deemed it to be the dried-up bed of a small lake.

This hypothesis would not serve, else it would be choked with verdure.

The pit stared up at them like an ominous eye, though neither paid further attention to it, for the glorious prospect mapped at their feet momentarily swept aside all other considerations.
"What a beautiful place!" murmured Iris.