oon as we had eaten supper.
We were all dead tired after the long journey, and I guess none of us
were troubled in our sleep by thoughts of the strange spirit of evil that
ruled the city, according to the natives. It's a lucky thing, sometimes,
that you can't see into the future. If we could have done so that night,
our sleep might have been less sound.

"We were awakened by the guides, who had already prepared a good
breakfast for us, and you may be sure we all ate heartily, both because
it tasted good and because we wanted to start out on our exploration in
good trim.

"The meal despatched, we entered the ruins by what had apparently at one
time been a great gate, but which now was nothing but a twisted heap of
stone. Evidently the city had been encircled by a wall, but this had
crumbled away and was overgrown by the tropical vegetation.

"Of course, we had to leave the guides behind us, as they positively
refused to pass the boundaries. This didn't cause us much worry,
however, for we knew from experience that, when it came to trouble, they
were of little use.

"The ruins lay before us apparently devoid of any human inhabitants. At
first we didn't know which way to go, but finally decided to make
straight for what looked to have been the center of the town. As well as
we could make out, all the streets seemed to converge toward that point,
which had no doubt been the public square.

"We followed this plan, but as we went along were often tempted to alter
it. More than once we passed some building that seemed in better repair
than the others, and of course we wanted to explore it. But we thought
it would be no use examining lesser ruins, when greater ones were at
hand. For, as we got nearer the center of the town, we could see that
the square was occupied by a building much more pretentious than any we
had seen so far. From a distance it had looked merely like a jumbled
mass of ruins, but when we at last stood before it we could see that such
was far from being the case.

"To be sure, the building was in a ruinous condition, but, probably owing
to its having originally been built in a more solid fashion even than its
neighbors, it was in comparatively good preservation. Even the roof
appeared intact in places, and we marveled as we gazed at it. Great
columns rose tier after tier, interspersed with solid walls of granite,
until they supported a roof at least eighty or a hundred feet from the
ground.