Then, with a brusque "Come!", the starred one stalked away; while the two prisoners, poked and shoved by half a dozen guards, started slowly down an avenue of elms toward the huge triangular doorway of a remote building.
II
As they passed along the tree lined boulevard, their eyes were attracted to several edifices of strange forms and colors. Some were shaped like gigantic mushrooms, and were of a sky-blue complexion; others were like huge inverted sea-green funnels; while the queerest of all was an enormous crystalline sphere that rested on a wide base of black marble. "You see, Jude," Downey remarked, "this is the twenty-third century, sure enough. Was anything like this ever known in our own time?"
"They do look crazy," Judith admitted, "but I'd be crazier yet if I believed what you want me to. We must both be dreaming. That's the simplest explanation."
On reaching the triangular doorway, they passed into a hall whose softly glowing walls were lined with a satiny claret-colored cloth. The floors were of alabaster; the air was rich with pine-incense; and the golden incense burners, upon ebony tables, gave something of the effect of an Oriental temple.
But it was not this that arrested the newcomers' attention. Their eyes were immediately drawn to a figure who, clad in lush crimson, sat on a throne that dangled ten feet above the floor, being suspended from the ceiling by chains. As Downey adjusted himself to the subdued light, he was able to make out that the man was old, very old; his face was seamed and pitted until it might have been mistaken for the mummy of Rameses.
Yet his movements belied his age. He was able to act with the swiftness and decision of youth; and his words, when at length they came forth, were spoken rapidly and with force.
Surrounding him like courtiers, on the floor of the hall, were half a dozen elaborately robed men with faces as creased and scarred as his own. Yet all, despite their appearance of extreme age, moved with an almost youthful robustness; their bodies seemed erect and well developed, with none of the flabby or wizened quality that might have been expected to belong to their years.
It was with a vague discomfort that Downey noted the owlish stares these ancient beings cast at him, nudging one another, and ogling him with unhealthy peeps and squints. In his eyes they were the most repulsive creatures he had ever seen.