ickly covered in
sufficiently to render it habitable. These preparations kept the
Peruvians busy for the remainder of that day; and while they were thus
employed Phil and Dick devoted themselves to a minute inspection of the
temple proper.

This had evidently at one time been a magnificent building, probably the
finest of its kind in the entire country; but now it was in a state of
utter ruin, its beautiful roof and walls having been stripped entirely
of the massive hammered and engraved gold and silver plates which, Phil
asserted, had once adorned them, while its marble pavement was heaped
high with immense fragments of masonry, some of which were evidently
portions of a boldly moulded cornice that had once adorned the inner
walls of the structure, while others bore upon their faces signs of
having been exquisitely sculptured in alto or basso rilievo. It was a
melancholy sight, even to the unimpressionable Dick, this irreparable
ruin of a once noble and surpassingly beautiful building; but Phil, as
he gazed round him in silence, was so deeply moved that, for the moment,
he seemed to have entirely forgotten the object of his visit to the
place; seeing which, Dick at length wandered away and left his friend to
himself and his own mysterious self-communings.

Later on, when they again met to partake together of the evening meal
which had been prepared for them, Phil, who, though still in a somewhat
melancholy mood, seemed to have become once more almost his normal self,
endeavoured to explain to Dick the emotions which had swayed him all
through the day.

"It was one of my strange fits, again, that overcame me," he said. "You
know, Dick, that I have been subject to them, off and on, as far back in
my life as I can remember. They come upon me without previous warning
or apparent cause, sometimes in the form of extraordinarily vivid
dreams, and sometimes as more or less vague memories, awakened by a
chance sound, or sight, or odour. Either of these apparently slight
causes has sufficed, at times, to recall scenes in which I seem to have
been an actor far back in the past; so far back, indeed, that if they
really occurred at all it must have been long before I--that is to say,
my present body--was born. Now, don't laugh at me, lad; no doubt, when
I talk thus, I must seem to you to be stating absurdities,
impossibilities; for you have often told me that you have never
experienced the curious sensations of which I spe