every alley and lane we passed.

Thus I, a sodden giant, led by those elfin torches, paced through the
city until we came to an open square with a great lumber of ruins in
the centre all marred and spoiled by vegetation; and here the lights
wavered, and went out by scores and hundreds, just as the petals drop
from spent flowers, while it seemed, though it may have been only wind
in the rank grass, that the air was full of most plaintive sighs as
each little lamp slipped into oblivion.

The big pile was a mass of fallen masonry, which, from the broken
pillars all about, might have been a palace or temple once. I pushed
in, but it was as dark as Hades here, so, after struggling for a time
in a labyrinth of chambers, chose a sandy recess, with some dry herbage
by way of bedding in a corner, and there, thankful at least for
shelter, my night's wanderings came to an end and I coiled myself down,
ate a last handful of dry fruit, and, strange as it may seem, was soon
sleeping peacefully.

I dreamed that night that a woman, with a face as white as ivory, came
and bent over me. She led a babe by either hand, while behind her were
scores of other ones, with lovely faces, but all as pale as the stars
themselves, who looked and sighed, but said nothing, and when they had
stared their fill, dropped out one by one, leaving a wonderful blank in
the monotony where they had been; but beyond that dream nothing
happened.

It was a fine morning when I woke again, and obviously broad day
outside, the sunshine coming down through cracks in the old palace
roof, and lying in golden pools on the floor with dazzling effect.

Rubbing my eyes and sitting up, it took me some time to get my senses
together, and at first an uneasy feeling possessed me that I was
somehow dematerialised and in an unreal world. But a twinge of cramp
in my left arm, and a healthy sneeze, which frightened a score of bats
overhead nearly out of their senses, was reassuring on this point, and
rubbing away the cramp and staggering to my feet, I looked about at the
strange surroundings. It was cavernous chaos on every side:
magnificent architecture reduced to the confusion of a debris-heap,
only the hollow chambers being here and there preserved by massive
columns meeting overhead. Into these the yellow light filtered
wherever a rent in a cupola or side-wall admitted it, and allured by
the vision of corridors one beyond the other, I presently set off on a
tour of d