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.