Presently it became clear that "had been" was the correct term. Nothing but wild life appeared. Rolla looked closely for any signs of human occupancy, but saw none. To all appearances the place was deserted; and it was just as easy to say that it had been so for ten centuries as for one.
"There seems no good reason why I should not go farther," commented Rolla aloud, to boost her courage. "Perchance I shall find the magic stone in this queer place."
It speaks well for her self-confidence that, despite the total strangeness of the whole affair—a city was as far out of her line as aviation to a miner—she went forward with very little hesitation. None of the wild creatures that scuttled from her sight alarmed her at all; the only things she looked at closely were such bees as she met. The insects ignored her altogether, except to keep a respectful distance.
"These masters," observed Rolla with satisfaction, "know nothing of me. I shall not obey them till they threaten me." But there was no threatening.
For the most part the buildings were in ruins. Here and there a structure showed very little damage by the elements. In more than one case the roof was quite intact. Clearly the materials used were exceptional, or else the place had not been deserted very long. The doctor held to the latter opinion, especially after seeing a certain brown-haired dog running to hide behind a heap of stones.
"It was a dog!" the doctor felt sure. To Rolla, however, the animal was even more significant. She exclaimed about it in a way which confirmed the doctor's guess. On she went at a faster rate, plainly excited and hopeful of seeing something further that she could recognize.
She found it in a hurry. Reaching the end of one block of the ruins, she turned the corner and started to follow the cross street. Whereupon she stopped short, to gaze in consternation at a line of something whitish which stretched from one side of the "street" to the other.
It was a line of human skeletons.
There were perhaps two hundred in the lot, piled one on top of the other, and forming a low barrier across the pavement. To Rolla the thing was simply terrible, and totally without explanation. To the people on the earth, it suggested a formation of troops, shot down in their tracks and left where they had fallen. The doctor would have given a year of his life if only Rolla had had the courage to examine the bones; there might have been bullet holes, or other evidence of how they had met their death.
The Sanusian chose rather to back carefully away from the spot. She walked hurriedly up the street she had just left, and before going another block came across two skeletons lying right in the middle of the street. A little farther on, and she began to find skeletons on every hand. Moreover—and this is especially significant—the buildings in this locality showed a great many gaps and holes in their walls, such as might have been made by shell-fire.