haven't much preconceived ideas of things in general.
"The soldiers took us down a stairway cut into the solid rock of the cliffs and we went through irrigated fields where shaven-headed men and dark-eyed women paused in their work to stare curiously at us. They took us to a big, iron-braced gate where a small body of soldiers equipped like our captors challenged them, and after a short parley we were escorted into the city. It was much like any other Eastern city—men, women and children going to and fro, arguing, buying and selling. But all in all, it had that same effect of apartness—of vast antiquity. I couldn't classify the architecture any more than I could understand the language. The only thing I could think of as I stared at those squat, square buildings was the huts certain low-caste, mongrel peoples still build in the valley of the Euphrates in Mesopotamia. Those huts might be a degraded evolution from the architecture in that strange African city.
"Our captors took us straight to the
largest building in the city, and
while we marched along the streets, we
discovered that the houses and walls were
not of stone after all, but a sort of brick.
We were taken into a huge-columned hall
before which stood ranks of silent soldiery,
and taken before a dais up which
led broad steps. Armed warriors stood
behind and on either side of a throne, a
scribe stood beside it, girls glad in ostrich-plumes
lounged on the broad steps, and
on the throne sat a grim-eyed devil who
alone of all the men of that fantastic city
wore his hair long. He was black-bearded,
wore a sort of crown and had
the haughtiest, cruelest face I ever saw
on any man. An Arab sheikh or Turkish
shah was a lamb beside him. He reminded
me of some artist's conception of
Belshazzar or the Pharaohs—a king who
was more than a king in his own mind
and the eyes of his people—a king who
was at once king and high priest and god.
"Our escort promptly prostrated themselves before him and knocked their heads on the matting until he spoke a languid word to the scribe and this personage signed for them to rise. They rose, and the leader began a long rigmarole to the king, while the scribe scratched away like mad on a clay tablet and Conrad and I stood there like a pair of blooming gaping jackasses, wondering what it was all about. Then I heard a word repeated continually, and each time he spoke it, he indicated us. The word sounded like 'Akkaddian,' and suddenly my brain reeled with the possibilities it betokened. It couldn't be—yet it had to be!
"Not wanting to break in on the conversation and maybe lose my bally head, I said nothing, and at last the king gestured and spoke, the soldiers bowed again and seizing us, hustled us roughly from the royal presence into a columned corridor, across a huge chamber and into a small cell where they thrust us and locked the door. There was only a heavy bench and one window, closely barred.
"'My heavens, Bill,' exclaimed Conrad, 'who could have imagined anything equal to this? It's like a nightmare—or a tale from The Arabian Nights! Where are we? Who are these people?'
"'You won't believe me,' I said, 'but—you've read of the ancient empire of Sumeria?'
"'Certainly; it flourished in Mesopotamia some four thousand years ago. But what—by Jove!' he broke off, staring at me wide-eyed as the connection struck him.
"'I leave it to you what the descendants of an Asia-Minor kingdom are doing in East Africa,' I said, feeling for my
