But she received his news without comment.

She would have been equally undisturbed if told it was midnight, and that the vessel had gone ashore on the coast of China.
Just then the track turned sharply away from the sea.

A dry water-course cut deeply into the cliff where torrential rains had found an upright layer of soft scoria imbedded in the mass of basalt.

Their guide was standing on the sky-line of the cleft, some forty feet above them.
"Tell the others to make haste," he said.

"This is the end of your journey." It did not strike either Hozier or the girl as being specially remarkable that a man should meet them in this extraordinary place and address them in good English.