Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Book Excerpt: ...grew more startling when, a mile or so farther on our way, as the grey dawn overtook us, Harry pointed upwards and ahead to a small boss or excrescence now lifting itself above the long curve of the horizon. At first I took it for a hummock or tumulus. Then, as the day whitened about us, I saw it to be a building--a tall, circular barrack not unlike the Colosseum. A question shaped itself on my lips, but something in Harry's manner forbade it. His gaze was bent steadily forward, and I kept my wonder to myself, and also the oppression of spirit which had now grown to something like physical torture. When first the great barrack broke into sight we must have been at least two miles distant. I kept my eyes fastened on it as we approached, and little by little made out the details of its architecture. From base to summit--which appeared to be roofless--six courses of many hundred arches ran around the building, one above the other; and between each pair a course, as it seemed, of plain worked stone...