his voice calling us softly:

"Come here, gentlemen," he said, "and see something worth looking at."

So we scrambled up the steps, and, as I rather expected, found ourselves
upon the top of one of two towers set above an archway, which towers
were part of a great protective work outside the southern gates of a
city that could be none other than Harmac. Soaring above the mist rose
the mighty cliffs of Mur that, almost exactly opposite to us, were
pierced by a deep valley.

Into this valley the sunlight poured, revealing a wondrous and
awe-inspiring object of which the base was surrounded by billowy
vapours, a huge, couchant animal fashioned of black stone, with a head
carved to the likeness of that of a lion, and crowned with the _uraeus_,
the asp-crested symbol of majesty in old Egypt. How big the creature
might be it was impossible to say at that distance, for we were quite a
mile away from it; but it was evident that no other monolithic
monument that we had ever seen or heard of could approach its colossal
dimensions.

Compared to this tremendous effigy indeed, the boasted Sphinx of Gizeh
seemed but a toy. It was no less than a small mountain of rock shaped by
the genius and patient labour of some departed race of men to the form
of a lion-headed monster. Its majesty and awfulness set thus above the
rolling mists in the red light of the morning, reflected on it from the
towering precipices beyond, were literally indescribable; even in our
miserable state, they oppressed and overcame us, so that for awhile we
were silent. Then we spoke, each after his own manner:

"The idol of the Fung!" said I. "No wonder that savages should take it
for a god."

"The greatest monolith in all the world," muttered Orme, "and Higgs is
dead. Oh! if only he had lived to see it, he would have gone happy. I
wish it had been I who was taken; I wish it had been I!" and he wrung
his hands, for it is the nature of Oliver Orme always to think of others
before himself.

"That's what we have come to blow up," soliloquized Quick. "Well,
those 'azure stinging-bees,' or whatever they call the stuff (he meant
azo-imides) are pretty active, but it will take a lot of stirring if
ever we get there. Seems a pity, too, for the old pussy is handsome in
his way."

"Come down," said Orme. "We must find out where we are; perhaps we can
escape in the mist."

"One moment," I answered. "Do you see that?" and I pointed to a
needle-like rock that pierce