This golden dyke, two
and a half to three miles wide and of undeterminable length and
depth, had merely been formed by strong, cunning hands into walls,
battlements, houses, mosques, and minarets.
It had been carved out _in situ_, the soft metal being fashioned with
elaborate skill and long patience. Jannati Shahr seemed, on a larger
scale and a vastly more magnificent plan, something like the hidden
rock-city of Petra in the mountains of Edom--a city wholly carved by
the Edomites out of the solid granite, without a single stone having
been laid in mortar.
Wonderful beyond all words as the early afternoon sun gleamed from
its broad-flung golden terraces and mighty walls--whereon uncounted
thousands of white figures had massed themselves--the "Very Heavenly
City" widened to the Legionaries' gaze.
On, up the last slope of the grassy plain the rushing horsemen bore.
Into a broad, paved way they thundered, and so up, on, toward the
great gate of virgin gold now waiting to receive them.
CHAPTER XL
INTO THE TREASURE-CITADEL
Well might those Legionaries who had been left behind to protect Nissr
and the sacred gifts have envied the more fortunate ones now sweeping
into Jannati Shahr.
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