ow far off it may be I do not know, for I cannot see through stone.
Friend Adams, help me to refill the lamps, for they burn low, and all
these dead would be ill company in the dark. So at least my people
think, since there is not one of them that dares to enter this place.
When first we found it only a few years ago and saw the company it held,
they fled, and left me to search it alone. Look, yonder are my footsteps
in the dust."

So I refilled the shallow hand-lamps, and while I did so Orme took
some hasty observations of which he jotted down the results in his
pocket-book.

"What have you learned?" she asked, when at last he rejoined us somewhat
unwillingly, for she had been calling to him to come.

"Not so much as I should have done if you could have given me more
time," he replied, adding in explanation, "Lady, I was brought up as
an engineer, that is, one who executes works, and to do so takes
measurements and makes calculations. For instance, those dead men who
hollowed or dressed these caves must have been engineers and no mean
ones."

"We have such among us now," she said. "They raise dams and make drains
and houses, though not so good as those which were built of old. But
again I ask--what have you learned, O wise Engineer?"

"Only that here we stand not so very far above the city Harmac, of which
I chanced to take the level, and that behind yonder chair there was,
I think, once a passage which has been built up. But be pleased to say
nothing of the matter, Lady, and to ask me no more questions at present,
as I cannot answer them with certainty."

"I see that you are discreet as well as wise," she replied with some
sarcasm. "Well, since I may not be trusted with your counsel, keep it to
yourself."

Oliver bowed and obeyed this curt instruction.

Then we began our return journey, passing many more groups of skeletons
which now we scarcely troubled to look at, perhaps because the heavy air
filled with dust that once had been the flesh of men, was telling on
our energies. Only I noticed, or rather the observant Quick called my
attention to the fact, that as we went the kings in their chairs
were surrounded by fewer and fewer attendants and women, and that the
offerings placed at their feet were of an ever-lessening value. Indeed,
after we had passed another five or six of them, their murdered retinues
dwindled to a few female skeletons, doubtless those of favourite wives
who had been singled out for thi