Forward went the adventurers, the glow from the fire gulf growing fainter as they advanced, until the towers and walls of a city loomed before them through the twilight. The sight aroused the interest of the scientist. Hitherto he had moved in an apathetic manner, very different from his usual brisk style. His nerves had received so rude a shock that he was as yet scarcely himself. Even the sight of Chenobi’s monstrous steed—rare though the creature was—had failed to arouse him. But now, with the walls of the mysterious subterranean city within sight, his scientific zeal revived.
Instinctively he felt for his note-book, forgetting for the moment that he had lost it in his adventure with the Triceratops.
“Don’t worry,” Seymour said, noting his look of disappointment; “I happen to have one on me that will suit you down to the ground.” Forthwith he produced a bulky pocket-book, at sight of which Mervyn’s eyes glistened.
“Many thanks!” he cried, taking it, and at once commenced to scribble down a graphic description of the giant elk.
Ere long the party passed through a great gateway, the stone gate of which had fallen from its hinges, and now lay crumbling in the dust. On either hand towered the palaces of the Ayutis, now, alas, tottering to decay. Built of some dazzling white stone, they gleamed through the twilight as though bathed in a flood of moonlight; the effect—accentuated by the silence of the whole place—being indescribably weird. The footsteps of the adventurers raised a volley of echoes from the deserted streets as they moved over the pavement, and from ahead at intervals came the muffled baying of hounds.
The Ayuti was strangely silent as he strode beside Muswani, the elk—he had not mounted since raising the drawbridge. Perhaps he was thinking of the time when the streets had rung with the voices of his people, when the palaces had throbbed with life.
Although he was burning to question their guide concerning the past history of the city, Mervyn forbore, fearing by some indiscreet query to offend him. But he need not have feared. The Ayuti’s grief for the desolation of his city had long since lost its acuteness, and he had resigned himself to a life of solitude, living for but one object, which, later on, he revealed to the baronet. What fearful fate had overtaken the inhabitants of the place, the explorers could not imagine. It could have been no ordinary catastrophe that wiped out the Ayutis. That they had become extinct, save for Chenobi, by natural means, none would believe.
So, while each puzzled his brain for a solution to the problem, they passed into a vast square, in the centre of which stood a great temple. Around this the Ayuti led them to the further side. The familiar style of the architecture struck Wilson at once. The building was almost a duplicate of the one he had discovered in the valley, save that it was many times larger, and that here a huge flight of steps led upward to a broad terrace which ran the whole length of the temple front. And upon this latter, looming gaunt and spectral through the twilight, towered a monstrous idol.
“Wait!” Chenobi commanded. He lifted the engineer from his mount, and led Muswani through a door in the temple wall at the base of the steps, his entry being greeted by a clamorous baying. In a few moments he reappeared and, picking up the engineer as one might a child, commenced to ascend the steps. Climbing close upon his heels, his new-found friends soon reached the terrace. Here they passed behind the colossal figure of the god and entered the temple.
A murmur of astonishment went up as they crossed the threshold. The whole vast hall was ablaze with a dazzling radiance, unearthly as it was brilliant. The origin of the light became apparent at once. In the centre of the temple floor was a huge basin, wherein bubbled a strange, phosphorescent liquid, like nothing the explorers had ever seen before. On one side it overflowed, and ran in a glistening stream across the floor, to disappear in a dark recess in the wall.