Book Two Beyond the Great Oblivion Chapter 25 The Dungeon of the Skeletons

And at thought that these were the remnants of the race which once had conquered a vast continent, built tall cities and spanned abysses with steel--the remnants of so many million keen, energetic, scientific people--he groaned despairingly.

"What does all this mean?" he exclaimed in a kind of passionate outburst. "Where are we? How did you get here? Can't you understand me? We're Americans, I tell you--Americans! For God's sake, can't you understand?"

Once more the word "Merucaans" passed round from mouth to mouth; but beyond this Stern got no sign of comprehension.

"Village! Houses!" shouted he. "Shelter! Rest, eat, sleep!"

They merely shoved him forward up the slope, together with the girl; and now Stern saw a curious kind of causeway, paved with slippery, wet, black stones that gleamed in the torchlight, a causeway slanting sharply upward, its further end hidden in the dense vapor behind which the great and unknown light shone with ever-clearer glowing.

This road wash bordered on either hand by a wall of carefully cut stone about three and a half feet high; and into the wall, at equal distances of twenty feet or so, iron rods had been let. Each rod bore a fire-basket, some only dully flickering, some burning bright and blue.

Numbers of the strange folk were loitering on the causeway or coming down to join the throng which now ascended; many clambered lithely up onto the wall, and, holding to the rods or to each other--for the stones, like everything here, were wet and glairy--watched with those singular-hued and squinting eyes of theirs the passage of the strangers.