as I who saw but one side of it could judge--pairs of gigantic stone
figures supported archways pierced in the wall; or sluices, rather,
since from every archway but one a full stream of water issued and
poured down the sides of the hill. The one dry archway was that which
faced us with open gate, and towards which Harry led the way; for
oppression and terror now weighted my hand as with lead upon Grey
Sultan's rein.

Harry, however, rode forward resolutely, dismounted almost in the very
shadow of the great arch, and waited, smoothing his mare's neck.
But for the invitation in his eyes, which were solemn, yet without a
trace of fear, I had never dared that last hundred yards. For above the
rush of waters I heard now a confused sound within the building--the
thud and clanking of heavy machinery, and at intervals a human groan;
and looking up I saw that the long friezes in bas-relief represented men
and women tortured and torturing with all conceivable variety of method
and circumstance--flayed, racked, burned, torn asunder, loaded with
weights, pinched with hot irons, and so on without end. And it added to
the horror of these sculptures that while the limbs and even the dress
of each figure were carved with elaborate care and nicety of detail, the
faces of all--of those who applied the torture and of those who looked
on, as well as of the sufferers themselves--were left absolutely blank.
On the same plan the two Titans beside the great archway had no faces.
The sculptor had traced the muscles of each belly in a constriction of
anguish, and had suggested this anguish again in moulding the neck, even
in disposing the hair of the head; but the neck supported, and the locks
fell around, a space of smooth stone without a feature.

Harry allowed me no time to feed on these horrors. Signing to me to
dismount and leave Grey Sultan at the entrance, he led me through the