“That was a great land I was in, a land of dead races; a land of desert sand, and ruined temples, and bright colours, and blue skies. I and many others were to come by our deaths in a strange fashion. It was this, look. “We were all taken up to stand on the great head of a statue. Terrible it was in its sightless eyes, its heavy plaited hair, and its paws of a creature. But I had no time to feel afraid, or astonished. I was there to die. So large was this great statue that as many as thirty people, or more, could stand upon its head, and those who had to die were to leap from the head, down into the depths below. And as I stood there with the other prisoners, I looked, and saw the people walking about in their colours, far down, like spilt beads upon the earth. Every one that leaped from that statue had to cry aloud some great load cry. And I saw them leap and fall, crushed upon the earth beneath us. “Then it came to the turn of two before me, then one before me, then it was my turn to leap. And suddenly I felt the spirit surge within me, and I thought, ‘They shall see that I, at least, know how to die.’ And I sent my voice out so that my throat almost burst with the strength of it, and I leaped. “The air tore at my ears as I fell, and there was a rushing sound, and the sun reeled in the sky before me, with blood-red bars crossing the yellow of his light. Then the ground seemed to rise up and smite me, and I lay all bruised and broken from my fall. I felt the blood burst out in warm gouts in breathing, and I said, ‘I am broken to pieces. I am dying. Soon I shall be dead.’ And then I became aware of a voice speaking to me, as if through grey clouds that were around me. ‘Lie still,’ said the voice, ‘and they will think us dead like the others, and by this we may escape; lie still.’ “I knew then I was not dead but broken, and I dreaded moving because of the sickening sense of the red stream that welled from my open lips. “Only my spirit was kept from fainting by the sound of that voice. ‘Life,’ it whispered; ‘we are not dead. Life.’ “And surely for hours the bodies fell from a height around us, and I lay listening to the sound. And when at last that sound was finished, they brought carts to take us away. I was thrown in among the dead bodies--taken up and thrown in, like any refuse that must be carted away. My dears, this happened long ago; this happened--God knows it was no dream. And I lay in that earth with the dead around me, the dead already cold. Eyes glazed and open, lay near me, and hands with the fingers stiff upon them, thrust out against my face. Flung in they were, these dead bodies. Is there anything worse than to be alive among the dead? “So I lay under this load of corpses, now straining my head to get a crevice to breathe through, now striving to rid myself of some cold body lying on my face.