but when they had flown on three miles - still the endless sweeping in either direction , and all the while their eyes on the ground , so the tiny distance took the better part of two hours - tharkay suddenly leaned forward on iskierka 's back , and temeraire followed her to the ground : tharkay leaped down in three bounds from her back to the sands , and he stooped at a mounded heap of red sand , exactly hollowed to that same eggshell curve , and beside it , stark and brilliantly reflecting in the sunlight , a white ochre handprint was marked freshly upon a jutting monolith of dark red stone .