They were then blindfolded, and the march resumed.
This time, after ascending some steep, broken ground, they came to steps, up which their guards assisted them.
At length there was another halt, and a low, tumultuous murmuring sound told them that they must have arrived in the midst of a considerable assembly.
Then the bandages were removed from their eyes, and they gazed round upon a marvellous scene.
CHAPTER XXXI.
AT HOME IN A VOLCANO.
The prisoners found themselves in the middle of what they took to be a vast round building, with an immense domed roof, open to the sky in the centre. As a matter of fact, they afterwards knew it to be the interior of the crater of an extinct volcano.
Into the open part, one of Mars' two moons was peeping, throwing down a warm, mellow light, very different from the pale silvery beams of our own moon.
But this soft radiance was lost in the bright illumination given out by thousands of lights of some kind which were placed about within the great dome—some round the rocky walls, others high up in the wide, lofty roof.