“How long have these guys been dead?” Rex asked.
“Two or three hundred years some of them, perhaps more.”
“Would you believe it? Well, it’s the weirdest sight I’ve ever seen. You’d think they’d all crumple up and fall down.”
“No, they’re propped against the wall, and they have little weight.” De Richleau stopped for a moment and tapped one on the chest. The parchment-like skin stretched tight across the bones gave out a hollow sound. “They are little more than skeletons, only dust inside. The wire, too, that is stretched along the line helps to keep them in position; see, there is one that has toppled over.” He pointed to a grotesque bowing figure some distance away that hung suspended from the wire. The head had rolled off, and when De Richleau shone his torch on it, it showed a strange grinning mask, gaping through eternity in the darkness at the ceiling of the cave.
“To think that once they were all men,” said Rex, in an awed voice, “eating and laughing and loving, too, maybe.”
They are as we should have been tomorrow,” the Duke replied. “What are a few hundred years in all eternity — from dust we come — you know the rest!”
“Yes, that’s about it. Just miles and miles of dust... I think it’s pretty grim — say, isn’t that the hall ahead?”
“I think so. I hope that more than half our journey is done; this heat is positively appalling.”
They emerged into a great open space. The ray from the torch failed to penetrate to the ceiling, nor could they see across to the other side, but other openings into it showed clearly on either hand.
“Puzzle, find the altar,” said Rex.