There were
many balconies on each building and not a one that did not hold
its silent party of richly trapped men and women, with here and
there a child or two, but even the children maintained the
uniform silence and immobility of their elders. As they
approached the center of the city the girl saw that even the
roofs bore companies of these idle watchers, harnessed and
bejeweled as for some gala-day of laughter and music, but no
laughter broke from those silent lips, nor any music from the
strings of the instruments that many of them held in jeweled
fingers.
And now the avenue widened into an immense square, at the far end
of which rose a stately edifice gleaming white in virgin marble
among the gaily painted buildings surrounding it and its scarlet
sward and gaily-flowering, green-foliaged shrubbery. Toward this
U-Dor led his prisoners and their guard to the great arched
entrance before which a line of fifty mounted warriors barred the
way. When the commander of the guard recognized U-Dor the
guardsmen fell back to either side leaving a broad avenue through
which the party passed.
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