The Ayuti was strangely silent as he strode beside Muswani, the elk--he had not mounted since raising the drawbridge. Perhaps he was thinking of the time when the streets had rung with the voices of his people, when the palaces had throbbed with life. Although he was burning to question their guide concerning the past history of the city, Mervyn forbore, fearing by some indiscreet query to offend him. But he need not have feared. The Ayuti’s grief for the desolation of his city had long since lost its acuteness, and he had resigned himself to a life of solitude, living for but one object, which, later on, he revealed to the baronet. What fearful fate had overtaken the inhabitants of the place, the explorers could not imagine. It could have been no ordinary catastrophe that wiped out the Ayutis. That they had become extinct, save for Chenobi, by natural means, none would believe. So, while each puzzled his brain for a solution to the problem, they passed into a vast square, in the centre of which stood a great temple. Around this the Ayuti led them to the further side. The familiar style of the architecture struck Wilson at once. The building was almost a duplicate of the one he had discovered in the valley, save that it was many times larger, and that here a huge flight of steps led upward to a broad terrace which ran the whole length of the temple front. And upon this latter, looming gaunt and spectral through the twilight, towered a monstrous idol. “Wait!” Chenobi commanded. He lifted the engineer from his mount, and led Muswani through a door in the temple wall at the base of the steps, his entry being greeted by a clamorous baying. In a few moments he reappeared and, picking up the engineer as one might a child, commenced to ascend the steps. Climbing close upon his heels, his new-found friends soon reached the terrace. Here they passed behind the colossal figure of the god and entered the temple. A murmur of astonishment went up as they crossed the threshold. The whole vast hall was ablaze with a dazzling radiance, unearthly as it was brilliant. The origin of the light became apparent at once. In the centre of the temple floor was a huge basin, wherein bubbled a strange, phosphorescent liquid, like nothing the explorers had ever seen before. On one side it overflowed, and ran in a glistening stream across the floor, to disappear in a dark recess in the wall. The scientist, his first surprise over, would have moved forward to examine this uncanny liquid more closely, but Chenobi restrained him. “Nay,” he said gravely, “there is death in the stream of light! None can touch it and live. Sit ye here awhile, till I prepare food.” With that the Ayuti passed out of the building, leaving his friend wondering wherein lay the deadly power of the extraordinary liquid. “There seems no end to the marvels of this weird land,” Mervyn remarked. “If ever we return to the upper world, what a tale we shall have to tell.” Haverly closed one eye.