ver.

"All run down through a big hole into the earth, I say," said a deep
voice. "Well, gentlemen, how are you?"

"Ah, Mr Rimmer, good morning," cried Oliver, shaking hands. "How are
your hurts?"

"Oh, better my lad, and yours?"

"Only a bit stiff and achy. But who's to think of injuries in such a
glorious place?"

"Glorious!" said the mate, screwing up his face. "Look about you.
Everything's destroyed."

"Oh, yes," said Drew; "but in a month it will be all green again and as
beautiful as ever!"

"Except my poor brig," said the mate. "Why, she's regularly planted
here in the mud and sand, and, unless she strikes root and grows young
vessels, she's done for."

"But where is the sea?" cried Oliver.

The mate looked round him and then pointed south-west.

"Yonder, if there is any," he said.

"How do you know?"

"Trees all standing in the other direction, and yes, there are others
out that way," he said, pointing. "It's plain enough, the wave swept
right across this low level. You can see how the trunks lie and how the
rocks and the shells have been borne along. Far as I can make out the
wave has cleared a track about a dozen miles wide. May be twenty. Why,
you gentlemen seemed to be quite pleased."

"Why not?" cried Oliver. "It's grand. Look at the work cut out for us.
We want all the British Museum staff to help."

"Better have my crew, then, for there's nothing for us to do. The
brig's fast settled down on an even keel. I say, Mr Panton, kick me or
pinch me, please."

"What for?"

"Because I must be asleep and all this a dream. No, it's real enough,"
he said, sadly; "wait till I get a glass."

He went back to the cabin and returned directly with a telescope.

"I'll go up to the main-top," he said, "and have a look round."

The three naturalists were too much taken up by the endless objects of
interest spread around them to pay much heed to his words, so that he
had mounted to the main-top and then to the topgallant masthead before
his words took their attention again, just too, as plainly enough they
could make a huge animal of the crocodile kind slowly crawling along the
edge of a pool about a quarter of a mile away.

"Here you are, gentlemen," the mate shouted.

"Yes, what is it?" cried Oliver, in answer to his hail.

"You can trace it all from here with the glass. There is some sea
left."

"So I suppose," said Panton drily.

"Lies about four miles away to the east-'ard