For a moment Ramey stared at him bewilderedly. Then a slow flush stained his cheeks. Oh, that was it? They were poking fun at him; mocking his ignorance? Well, all right--if they wanted to act that way-- "Excuse me!" he said stiffly. "I didn't understand. Sorry to be so stupid. Red, perhaps we'd better get ready to run along, after all. We seem to be in the way here." But Ian Aiken stayed him with a hand on the arm. He was still grinning, but his grin was warm and friendly. "Sit down, Ramey, and don't be an ass. We're not laughing at you. We're amused because the situation is _what_ it is: so baffling that we must either smile it off or surrender. "The answers I just gave you were absolutely true--and no man alive can tell you more. The mystery of Angkor is this: that here in the depths of an aboriginal jungle we find a temple dwarfing the greatest architectural work of present-day Man, and a city large enough to hold thirty million souls--yet not a man in the world knows _who_ built this marvel, or _when_ it was built, or _where_ the builders came from, or where, above all, vanished the mighty race which once lived here!" CHAPTER III The Vanished Race For a moment Ramey Winters stared at the gray-haired scientist incredulously. Then he laughed. "All right, sir," he said. "I'll bite. What's the gag?" But there was no twinkle of amusement in Dr. Aiken's eyes now. He leaned forward over the table, his manner sober and abruptly serious. "It's no joke, Ramey. It's the cold truth." In his voice was a strange note, a sort of angry helplessness. "For years men have been pondering this problem, but still the answer eludes us. "In the year 1860, the French naturalist, A. Mouhot, came up the Mekong River in search for flora and fauna, and by sheer chance stumbled upon the massive, walled city of Angkor Thom, about one mile from here. I used the word, 'stumbled'; actually, only the toe of a giant could trip over such an obstacle. For Angkor Thom is a rectangular enclosure two miles in each direction, surrounded by a wall thirty feet high; within these walls are more than fifty towers, averaging two hundred feet in height! Altogether, the wall encloses something like a hundred and seventy-six acres of palaces, terraces, temples and galleries! "That was the city proper. For miles about were the ruins of smaller abodes. This building in which we have made our headquarters, Angkor Vat, is supposed to have been Angkor Thom's chief temple. You have already exclaimed at its size. Let me point out that you cannot completely grasp how huge it is because there exists here no basis for comparison but palm trees, fromager, cane. The façade of this single building is five times as wide as the Cathedral of Notre Dame!