The girl was given but brief opportunity for further observation
of the pitiful creatures in the enclosure as her captor, after
having directed the others to return to the fields, led her
toward the tower, which they entered, passing into an apartment
about ten feet wide and twenty long, in one end of which was a
stairway leading to an upper level and in the other an opening to
a similar stairway leading downward. The chamber, though on a
level with the ground, was brilliantly lighted by windows in its
inner wall, the light coming from a circular court in the center
of the tower. The walls of this court appeared to be faced with
what resembled glazed, white tile and the whole interior of it
was flooded with dazzling light, a fact which immediately
explained to the girl the purpose of the glass prisms of which
the domes were constructed. The stairways themselves were
sufficient to cause remark, since in nearly all Barsoomian
architecture inclined runways are utilized for purposes of
communication between different levels, and especially is this
true of the more ancient forms and of those of remote districts
where fewer changes have come to alter the customs of antiquity.
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