d themselves to a long night of repose
under conditions of infinitely greater comfort than they had enjoyed for
many days past.

Escombe's sleep that night was unusually sound, even after making every
allowance for the excessive fatigue of the past day; in fact he had not
slept so soundly and so long since the night of his abduction from the
survey camp. When at length he awoke he found himself labouring under
the same feeling of puzzlement that had oppressed him on that eventful
morning; for when consciousness again returned to him and, opening his
eyes, he looked about him, he at once became aware that his surroundings
were very different from what he had expected. It is true that he still
occupied the litter in which he had retired to rest on the previous
evening, but a single glance was sufficient to show him that the litter
was no longer in the little tent which had then sheltered it; the tent
was gone, and the litter, or couch, upon which he lay comfortably
stretched now stood in a room lighted by a single window in the wall,
facing the foot of the couch. The window was unglazed, and apparently
had no window frame; it seemed in fact to be no more than a mere
rectangular aperture in a thick stone wall through which the sun,
already some hours high in the sky, was pouring his genial rays into the
room. The couch stood so low on the floor that from it nothing could be
seen of the landscape outside save a glimpse of a range of serrated
peaks, touched here and there with snow that gleamed dazzlingly white in
the brilliant sunshine. Urged therefore by surprise at the mysterious
change that had been wrought in his surroundings while he slept, and
curious to ascertain where he now was, Harry sprang from his couch and
went to the open window, out of which he gazed in an ecstasy of
astonishment and admiration. For his eyes rested upon the most glorious
landscape that he had ever beheld. He discovered that the building in
which he so strangely found himself stood at one extremity of an
enormous, basin-like valley, roughly oval in shape, some thirty miles
long by twenty miles in width, completely hemmed in on every side by a
range of lofty hills averaging, according to his estimate, from three to
four thousand feet in height. The centre of the valley was occupied by
a most lovely lake about fifteen miles long by perhaps ten miles wide,
dotted here and there with fairy-like islets, some of which were crowned
by little