As we went up those steps, I turned to my companion and asked him, "You are English, aren't you?" He nodded, and made a graceful half-bow. "Viscount Charles Denham, at your service," he said in a low voice, "captain in the armies of his Majesty, King George the Third." The words were like a thunderclap in my ears. A soldier of King George the Third? A man of a hundred and fifty years before my own time? And here, fifteen thousand years in the future, in this strange city! And these other prisoners, these strange, ragged figures! But before I could collect my dazed thoughts, our company was marching up the last few steps. Over the shoulders of those in front of me I saw the walls of a great room, and the crimson light of the glowing bulbs that illuminated it. There was a sound of crystal music, and laughter--a high, ringing laughter that was very different from the coarse mirth of the guards. Then we were surmounting the very last steps, marching up and over them.... [Illustration: "Held in its shapeless form were men, who hung helpless in its grasp."] _CHAPTER 8_ THE PEOPLE OF THE CITY A harsh order from the guards ahead halted us, and I had time to survey the room in which we stood. It was a circular room, at the edge of which we were grouped. From where we stood, the walls swept away in a great curve on either side, meeting directly opposite us, as it seemed, some ninety feet away. The floor of the room was of smooth, black stone, resembling marble, while the curving walls were of the same white material as the building's exterior. A hundred feet above the floor was a ceiling of white, and I saw at a glance that this one great hall occupied the whole lower half of the cylindrical building's interior, the upper half, no doubt, being divided into smaller apartments. Set in walls and ceiling were many of the glowing bulbs, and from these a cascade of ruddy light poured down on the people in the room. There must have been nearly a hundred of these people, men and women. They lay on couches along the room's edge, with long, curving tables of green metal before them, like the banquet halls of the ancient Romans. A shock went through me as I looked at the feasters, for they were unlike any of the people I had seen as I entered the city. These people were all tall and perfectly proportioned, and all were golden-haired, men and women alike. They were attired in short robes or tunics of brilliantly colored silks, and some wore circlets of flashing gems. With a sudden shock it came to me that these were the first women I had seen in all this city, for there had been none among the guards and slaves outside. But before I could ponder this fact, it was swept from my mind by my wonder at the other things in the room.