Chapter Twenty Six.
In the Deserted Citadel.
The crumbling walls and earthquake-rent towers which stood between them and the deeply blue sky attracted all eyes upwards.
Then an exclamation from Clarence, who had stumbled over something and fallen on his face, drew their looks once more down to the ground, and all stood still for some moments, transfixed with consternation. Between them and the buildings lay heaped a perfect Golgotha of human bones. It was like the valley in the vision of Ezekiel.
The ground took a slight dip at this juncture, then rose abruptly up for about seventy or eighty feet like an acutely slanting roof. Upon the crest of this slope were built the outer walls and watch-towers of these ancient ruins.
In this moat, or depression, were heaped and scattered mounds of grinning skulls, gaping ribs, detached arm and leg bones, shoulder-blades, and the smaller phalanges, which proved at the first glance that these dry frames were human remains. They were lying singly at places, in other parts heaped confusedly together in piles, just as they must have fallen. From the space they occupied there must have been thousands left here to rot, or to be devoured by birds, beasts, and insects.
It was an ominous and an awful sight, which might well have made the bravest shrink back from those grim and crumbling walls. A large and solitary vulture sat on one of the upper keeps, and seemed to be the only watcher left in this deserted fort. He perched motionless and sharply silhouetted against the rarefied space, like an embodiment of spent disaster.
Ned was the first to recover his presence of mind. Stooping down, he picked up a skull and looked at it critically. It was dry and powdery, with the combined effects of sun-bleaching and time. Holding it up in his hands, he said—
“The fellow who owned this, once upon a time, has forgotten his pains and troubles for many years—perhaps centuries. He must have been a big fellow when he carried it, with a solid brain-pan, although it has now grown thin and brittle as the finest porcelain.”
“A big fight has taken place here,” remarked Cocoeni, holding out the rusty head of a broken spear which he had picked up, and looking at its shape curiously.