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Nu on the causeway or co which now ascended;to the rods or to each other--for the stones, like everything here, et and glairy--watched with those singular-hued and squinting eyes of theirs the passage of the strangers

Stern and Beatrice, their breathing now oppressed by the thickening s heavy, as well as by this fresh exertion in the densely coineer was already bathed in a heavy sweat The intense heat, well above a hundred degrees, added to the humidity, almost stifled him His bound arms pained almost beyond endurance Unable to balance hiered

"Beatrice!" he called chokingly "Try to h trying to clao at it all trussed up this way"

She, needing no second appeal, raised her free aresture as of cutting But the elder boatly a person of soed the prisoners upward, ever upward toward the great and growing light

Now they had reached the top of the ascent

On either hand, vanishing in shadows and h walls extended, all built of black, cut stone sur passed, and the prisoners with theateway built of two hly polished, with a huge, straight plinth that Stern estihed less than ten tons

"Ironwork, heavy stonework, weaving, fisheries--a good beginning here to work on," thought the engineer But there was little tih a coes, detours and labyrinthic defenses which--all well lighted from above by fire-baskets--spoke only too plainly the character of the enclosure within

"A walled town, heavily fortified," Stern realized as he and Beatrice were thrust forward through the last gate "Evidently these people are living here in constant fear of attack by for in these narroays--and there h with it God, what a place! Makes me think of the machicoulis and pasterns at old Carcassonne So far as this is concerned, we're back again in the Dark Ages--dark, dark as Erebus!"

Then, all at once, out they issued into so strange a scene that, involuntarily, the two captives stopped short, staring about them ide eyes