olossal column of the cubes. It stood a
hundred feet from us. Its top was another hundred feet above the level
of our ledge and its length vanished in the depths.

And its head was a gigantic spinning wheel, yards in thickness, tapering
at its point of contact with the cliff wall into a diameter half that
of the side closest the column, gleaming with flashes of green flame and
grinding with tremendous speed at the face of the rock.

Over it, attached to the cliff, was a great vizored hood of some pale
yellow metal, and it was this shelter that cutting off the vaporous
light like an enormous umbrella made the pocket of clarity in which we
stood, the shaft up which sprang the pillar.

All along the length of that column as far as we could see the
myriad tiny eyes of the Metal People shone out upon us, not twinkling
mischievously, but--grotesque as this may seem, I cannot help it--wide
with surprise.

Only an instant longer did the great wheel spin. I saw the screaming
rock melting beneath it, dropping like lava. Then, as though it had
received some message, abruptly its motion now ceased.

It tilted; looked down upon us!

I noted that its grinding surface was studded thickly with the smaller
pyramids and that the tips of these were each capped with what seemed
to be faceted gems gleaming with the same pale yellow radiance as the
Shrine of the Cones.

The column was bending; the wheel approaching.

Drake seized me by the arm, drew me swiftly back into the mists. We were
shrouded in their silences. Step by step we went on, peering for
the edge of the shelf, feeling in fancy that prodigious wheeled face
stealing upon us; afraid to look behind lest in looking we might step
too close to the unseen verge.

Yard after yard we slowly covered. Suddenly the vapors thinned; we
passed out of them--

A chaos of sound beat about us. The clanging of a million anvils; the
clamor of a million forges; the crashing of a hundred years of thunder;
the roarings of a thousand hurricanes. The prodigious bellowings of the
Pit beating against us now as they had when we had flown down the long
ramp into the depths of the Sea of Light.

Instinct with unthinkable power was that clamor; the very voice of
Force. Stunned, nay BLINDED, by it, we covered ears and eyes.

As before, the clangor died, leaving in its wake a bewildered silence.
Then that silence began to throb with a vast humming, and through that
humming rang a murmur as that o