"It's her--it's the _Annihilator!_" shouted Jack, leaping about.
"Wait," counselled Andy, who dreaded the terrible disappointment should the boys be mistaken. The sound came nearer. The crackling could plainly be made out now. The sun was out of sight, but there was still the glow which follows sunset.
The boys were eagerly scanning the heavens, Their hearts beat high with hope. Suddenly, in the olive-tinted sky just above a range of rugged peaks, a black shape loomed. A black shape, as of a great cigar, pointed at both ends. It shot into full view.
"Thank Heaven, they have found us in time!" exclaimed Andy fervently, and the three stretched out their arms toward the craft from which they had been parted so long. It was as if they tried to pull it down to them.
Questions, ejaculations and entreaties came rapidly from the lips of the wanderers. They raised their voices in a shout. They leaped up and down. They wildly waved their hands and life-torches.
Then, to their inexpressible joy, they saw the course of the projectile change. It was headed toward them, and a few minutes later it settled slowly to the ground about half a mile away.
"Come on!" cried Jack! "We must hurry to them, or soon it will be too dark to see them, or for them to find us. It's our last chance; don't let's lose it!"
He sprang forward, the others after him, and together they ran toward the projectile. They could see the two professors and Washington White emerging from the steel car, waving their hands.
On rushed the lost wanderers, over the rough stones, skirting the great cliffs, falling into small craters, crawling out again, just missing several times being precipitated into yawning caverns, and stumbling over petrified bodies that strewed the ground.
Ever did they hasten onward though, increasing their speed. They came to a great crater that lay between them and the projectile, but fortunately there was across the middle of it a natural bridge of stone. But it was narrow--scarcely wide enough for one at a time.
"We can never cross on that!" cried Mark, halting.
"We've got to!" shouted Jack, and he sprang fearlessly forward, fairly running over the narrow path, which had a sheer descent of thousands of feet on either side.