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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: surrounded the little plateau and shielded it from the eastern sun might have had a good effect upon the vegetation, when suddenly Ralph, who had a ship's biscuit on the end of a sharp stick and was toasting it in the embers of a portion of the burned vines, sprang back with a shout. " Look out!" he cried, " the whole thing's coming down." And sure enough, in a moment a large portion of the vines, which had been clinging to the rock, fell upon the ground, in a burning mass. A cloud of smoke and dust arose, and when it had cleared away, the Captain and his party saw upon the perpendicular side of the rock, which was now revealed to them as if a veil had been torn away from in front of it, an enormous face cut out of the solid stone. CHAPTER III A CHANGE OF LODGINGS The great face stared down upon the little party gathered beneath it. Its chin was about eight feet above the ground and its stony countenance extended at least that distance up the cliff. Its features were in low relief, but clear and distinct, and a smoke-blackened patch beneath one of its eyes gave it a sinister appearance. From its wide-stretching mouth a bit of half-burned vine hung, trembling in the heated air, and this element of motion produced the impression on several of the party that the creature was about to open its lips. Mrs. Cliff gave a little scream—she could not help it;and Maka sank down on his knees, his back to the rock, and covered his face 'with his hands. Ralph was the first to speak. "There have been heathens around here," he said; " that's a regular idol." "You are right," said the Captain; "that is a bit of old-time work; that face was cut by the original natives." The two ladies were so interested and even excited, that they seized each other by the hands. Here before ...
