The Professor started a lengthy discourse on sacrificial altars the
moment we halted, ranging from Stonehenge to Toluca in search of
comparisons, but we were too tired to give it much attention. Holman
remarked in a whisper that Soma could probably outpoint the Professor if
it came to an array of facts concerning the probable uses of the
gigantic table, and when I glanced at the Kanaka, as he stopped to
listen to the scientist's discourse, I felt inclined to agree with the
scoffer. Soma had an intelligence that lifted him above his class, and I
was convinced that many of the Professor's surmises caused him secret
merriment.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER X
A MIDNIGHT ALARM
I think that Professor Herndon was the only person in the company who
was quite contented with the day's doings on that evening when we camped
near the table of stone. The polished slide and the ledge along which we
had passed to the cavern stirred his imagination concerning the wonders
that were before him, and he convinced himself that he had the god of
his ambition by the heel. The fat notebook was made the repository of
countless surmises regarding the period at which the ledge was in active
use as a test for courage, and the stone structure that loomed up
immediately beside the camp was tagged with countless suppositions
regarding its uses and its probable date of construction.
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