"I know. Certain unknown natural forces, however, might have made no
more of us than of non-mammalian and less highly organized creatures.

"Don't bother your head about these problems yet a while. On my word,
we've got enough to do for the present without much caring about how
or why.

"All we definitely know is that some very long, undetermined period of
time has passed, leaving us still alive. The rest can wait."

"How long a time do you judge it?" she anxiously inquired.

"Impossible to say at once. But it must have been something
extraordinary--probably far longer than either of us suspect.

"See, for example, the attrition of everything up here exposed to the
weather." He pointed at the heavy stone railing. "See how _that_ is
wrecked, for instance."

A whole segment, indeed, had fallen inward. Its debris lay in
confusion, blocking all the southern side of the platform.

The bronze bars, which Stern well remembered--two at each corner,
slanting downward and bracing a rail--had now wasted to mere
pockmarked shells of metal.

Three had broken entirely and sagged wantonly awry with the
displacement of the stone blocks, between which the vines and grasses
had long been carrying on their destructive work.