The next thing I knew was that I was very warm and drowsy, and that something was pressing cozily against me from both right and left. I opened my eyes, yawned, and found that I was flanked by a pair of the tame dogwolves, who were snoring gently into my ears. The fire was crackling under half-a-dozen spits loaded with meat, a number of the dark-haired people were moving about quietly, and the sun was beating straight in the door of the cavern with a cheerful orange light.
Dy-lee, seeing that I was awake, brought me water in half the shell of some great nut which I did not recognize; and Zheena, his mate, presented me with a choice of fruits set on a wooden slab that had been rounded and cleverly decorated with bright dyes.
After rinsing my mouth and eating an apple, I rose and stepped over a dogwolf to go to the opening and look out on a beautiful autumn day, crisp and clear as the one before had been. Then, after a few deep satisfying breaths, I returned and made a hearty breakfast of meat in company with all the cave folk.
When we had finished, Dy-lee led me down the path to the place of ruins. By the vivid sunlight I could see that the walls at the base of the cliff were somewhat less shattered than the first ones I had come upon; and also that they were definitely no accidents of nature, but constructed. I asked by gesture if his race had built these walls, and he signed to me, No.
Shortly we came to an enclosure that still bore its roof. I went and peered into this strange square place, and Dy-lee kindly handed me a long torch of bound reeds soaked in black oily matter and lighted, the purpose of his carrying which on this bright morning I had not hitherto understood. Now I realized that he meant me to see everything there was to be seen, whether open or hidden from the light; and I smiled my thanks as I took the brand. Dy-lee and his two dogwolves followed me into the place.
The roof was of stone, or perhaps of a stone, for I could detect no crack or joined place in all its surface. It was shored up by lesser stones, long and thick and ornamented with carvings that resembled the tendrils of the burrowflower. These must have been scratched into the rock with a metal tool, I think; though it certainly would have taken the whole lifetime of a man to accomplish all the carving I saw there. I had never seen or heard of anyone carving deliberate designs in anything before. The effect was lovely, albeit startling. Our glen-folk decorated many things with dyes made of vegetables and roots and minerals; but none had ever thought to adorn wood or stone with carvings. And here again I was astonished, for after the first moment or two, it seemed a natural and beautiful thing to do. It was like the shaking of the hands, something that was surprising only at the first acquaintance.
While I stared about me, Dy-lee passed into a far corner and began to clear away a great heap of trash, broken wood, old discarded sleeping furs, and other useless articles, which had been piled in a haphazard fashion there. I followed him across the floor and saw that he had cleared a space in the center of which was a square slab of stone set into the floor, with a huge ring embedded in one side of it. This ring he now grasped, and began to tug and haul at it, grunting with the strain. The block of stone moved upward, fell, moved and fell again, and it seemed it would take him an age to lift it free. So I put my hand on the ring beside his. He relinquished it to me, I think out of curiosity to see how powerful I was; and it was then I discovered that I was much the stronger, for the slab came up out of its hole smoothly and easily to my tug. Dy-lee straightened and said something in an awe-struck voice.
"That is the result of a hunter's life, friend Dy-lee," I said, grinning. "If you stalked with a bow and a hatchet, rather than a pack of dogwolves, you would be as strong as I."
Pointing down into the black well exposed by the raising of the stone, he indicated the torch in my hand. I thrust it down into the mouth of the well. There was a kind of sputtering sound from the brand, which I could not attribute to anything in particular, except perhaps that the fire was afraid to go down into that jetty darkness. Peering past it, I saw a line of the graduated stones that abounded in these ruined places, going down like a curious tilted rock ladder into the depths of the earth. Dy-lee made urgent motions to me, that I should go down. I shook my head. "Not for an extra year of life, friend," I said.