, and the strange metal
that it was made of aroused in him, it was evident that the man regarded
my action entirely without concern. I drew the attention of Rayburn and
Young to what I was doing, and to how evident it was that fire-arms
were unknown to this people; and in their ignorance we found much cause
for satisfaction.

[Illustration: CHECKING YOUNG'S OUTBREAK]

"If they don't know enough to corral our guns," Young said, "we've got a
pretty good-sized piece of dead-wood on 'em. Th' way things are goin',
we may have a rumpus a'most any time, I s'pose; and if it does come to a
rumpus, they'll be a badly struck lot when we open on 'em. Robinson
Crusoe cleaned out a whole outfit of Indians with just an old flint-lock
musket; and I should say that we'd simply paralyze this crowd when we
all get goin' at once with our revolvers an' Winchesters. Isn't that
your idea of it, Rayburn?"

But Rayburn did not answer, for while Young was speaking he had taken
out his field-glass and was examining the city, to within three or four
miles of which we now were come. "Well, that _is_ a walled city, and no
mistake!" he said, as he lowered the glass from his eyes. "Take a look,
Professor. These people may be easy to fool when it comes to prophecies,
but when it comes to engineering and architecture they're sound all the
way through. Just look at the straightness of that wall running up the
hill, and how exact the alignment is of the two parts above and below
that ledge of rocks. They had to get that alignment, you know, by taking
fore-sights and back-sights from the top of the ledge; and I must say
that for people who haven't got far enough along in civilization to wear
trousers, it's an uncommonly pretty piece of work."

As I looked through the glass I was less impressed by this technical
detail, involving the overcoming of engineering difficulties which I did
not very thoroughly understand, than I was by the majestic effect
produced by the city as a whole, in conjunction with the site on which
it was reared. At this point the lake came close up to the vastly high
cliffs by which the valley everywhere was girt in, and here jutted out
from the cliff a great promontory of rock, whereof the highest part was
fully two hundred feet above the lake-level. For the accommodation of
the houses which everywhere were built upon it, the sloping face of this
promontory had been cut into broad terraces, of which the facings were
massive walls o