In the Dark Backward
layer of dust deepened. By and by a wall fell … out here in the loneliness, a dead city left to its fate … Wild beasts made the halls their lair, and monkeys chattered in this very palace we are going to see to-morrow, and lizards slept on the steps in the sun … And more walls fell, and the sand crept up around them, and there was never a voice to break the stillness, nor a sound except the dropping of a stone. Then by degrees the face of the world changed, and the earth, like an ocean wave, rose until the city was covered, and there were only misshapen mounds to show that life had been there. And the city was dead and buried, waiting for us, just us three from the other end of the world, to lay it open to the light once more."
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