the cardinal points of the compass, only one, that from the west, had been constructed in its entirety; and in the temple itself, many stones still awaited the chisel of the sculptor. But the five immense conical domes, rugged with external carving and ornamentation, soared triumphantly into the pale sky; and the eye was led up to them, from the basic platform with its noble stairways, by the sculptured roofs of two tiers of cloisters grouped around the great, cliff-like mass of solid masonry that supported the portals and courts and shrines of the upper temple. And the colour of it was wonderful. Grey for the most part—every tint and shade of grey—golden greys where the sunlight smote the stones; silver greys in the lighter shadows; deeper greys, merging into blues and purples and blacks, where the shadows were heavy; and ruddy browns with violet tints in them where the lichen had rusted the stones.
The sheer vastness of it, in design and execution, reduced all that surrounded it to utter insignificance; and the ant-like men who swarmed, toiling about it, were lost in its immensity, just as the faint clash and tinkle of their tools was swallowed up by the heavy stillness of the afternoon.
On the brink of the great moat at the spot where, on the east, it skirted the limits of the sacred precincts, a small, nearly naked boy was seated, shaken by sobs.
