We could see now why the top of the hill had seemed level when we first looked at it from the wall. Indeed, the coral rock rose in a kind of sharp, bold escarpment eight or ten feet above the adjacent tree tops, making a sort of tableland or platform. This level, probably artificial, had been paved with the reddish-gray rock of the stairs and statues, and pathways and trees, perhaps artificially planted or more probably the result of Nature’s sowing, grew here and there in open places in the pavement. I may say in passing, that in all our exploration of the island, which however was not very thorough or complete owing to our limited stay upon it, we saw no quarry whence this hard, pink rock could have been taken.
The only satisfactory solution was that it had been brought there across the seas by the makers of the monuments and stairs, whoever they might have been. They must have had large, seaworthy vessels and adequate means of land transportation, to say nothing of a most considerable engineering ability to accomplish these mighty works.
Well, the level top of the hillock was in shape a parallelogram, in extent perhaps an acre and a half. It was the most curious place I have ever seen. In the middle of it, with its four sides parallel to the sides of the plateau, was a huge stone platform or altar, perhaps one hundred feet long by seventy feet wide. Completely surrounding this altar, some distance away from it so as to make an aisle perhaps ten feet in width, rose a line of huge statues carved, like those at the foot of the stairs, into the semblance of monstrous and repulsive human faces. I judged that some of them were at least thirty feet from mid breast to the top of their crowns. Not one of them was like another. There was variation in each just as there is variation in human faces.
All were ugly and horrible, namelessly evil, but all were lifelike and were, singularly enough, European. Yet that a European could have carved these statues was beyond the wildest possibility. I have since thought, and others have thought also, that perhaps the primitive men who erected that altar to some unknown god might have been men of the same racial stock as ourselves way back in the dim days of the world’s first morning.
At any rate, these statues or images rose at the breast from a kind of terrace a foot or so above the level of the platform, paved as elsewhere. They formed a sort of cloister or colonnade around the central platform which rose twenty or twenty-five feet above. A few of them had fallen down, but the more part were standing as their carvers or builders had left them. On the center of the raised platform or altar, stood three more of the same monster busts, placed one after another, the largest one being in the middle. They were in line, all looking in the same direction which my pocket compass told me was somewhat to the north of northwest by west. They were staring, therefore, into the general direction of the setting sun.
At the front, or west, end, the great platform was approached by a flight of steps. The stones of the pavement were so cunningly fitted together that only here and there had a seed lodged and grass-grown, except where the palm trees had sprung up, breaking the pavement. The stones of the platform or altar and the approaching stairs were also laid up without mortar and fitted in the same way. How savages with probably nothing but stone knives could have so perfectly trued and fitted the surfaces of such huge stones, to say nothing of moving them at all, was, I confess, beyond me; but so it was. The altar was in good repair, indeed so massive was it, and so well made, that nothing short of an earthquake could disturb it.
Standing so high, the fierce winds that swept over the plateau and platforms had probably assisted in keeping it clear of vegetation, of anything in fact, for save for the few scattered palm trees, it was as bare as the palm of my hand. And indeed, cleaner, for although my lady had brought with her some soap, I, not knowing how long we should be on the island and realizing her dainty habit and what a deprivation it would be to her to be without it, refrained from using it and cleaned myself as well as I could with water and sea sand, a poor substitute for soap as you can well imagine.
Well, we stood upon the platform and surveyed the scene in silent awe. Nothing in the parchment had led us to suspect all this, although I recollected the mention of the stone faces looking toward the niche under the big palm tree, the spot in the wall by which we were to locate the treasure cave.
“Come,� said I at last, breaking the silence, “we will have a nearer look at these gentry.�
“It seems like the temple of a vanished race,� breathed my lady softly, staring about her in growing wonder.