The captain was stupefied. That African not gone! If it were not he,
who had gone?

Then the captain felt a tight clutch upon his arm, and Ralph pulled
him around. Casting eyes outward, the captain saw that it was the lake
that had gone!

As he and Ralph stood there, stupefied and staring, they saw, by the dim
light which came through the opening on the other side of the cavern, a
great empty rocky basin. The bottom of this, some fifteen or twenty feet
below them, wet and shining, with pools of water here and there, was
plainly visible in the space between them and the open cleft, but farther
on all was dark. There was every reason to suppose, however, that all the
water had gone from the lake. Why or how this had happened, they did not
even ask themselves. They simply stood and stared.

In a few minutes they were joined by Edna, who had become so anxious at
their absence and silence that she had clambered over the wall, and came
running to them. By the time she reached them it was much darker than
when they had arrived, but she could see that the lake had gone. That
was enough.

"What do you suppose it means?" she said presently. "Are we over
some awful subterranean cavern in which things sink out of sight in
an instant?"

"It is absolutely unaccountable," said the captain. "But we must go back
to Mrs. Cliff. I hear her calling. And if Maka has come to his senses,
perhaps he can tell us something."