A shaft piercing down into the void and walled with the mists.
But it was not that shaft that made us clutch each other.

No! It was that through it uprose a colossal column of the cubes.

It stood a hundred feet from us.

Its top was another hundred feet above the level of our ledge and its length vanished in the depths.
And its head was a gigantic spinning wheel, yards in thickness, tapering at its point of contact with the cliff wall into a diameter half that of the side closest the column, gleaming with flashes of green flame and grinding with tremendous speed at the face of the rock.
Over it, attached to the cliff, was a great vizored hood of some pale yellow metal, and it was this shelter that cutting off the vaporous light like an enormous umbrella made the pocket of clarity in which we stood, the shaft up which sprang the pillar.
All along the length of that column as far as we could see the myriad tiny eyes of the Metal People shone out upon us, not twinkling mischievously, but--grotesque as this may seem, I cannot help it--wide with surprise.
Only an instant longer did the great wheel spin.

I saw the screaming rock melting beneath it, dropping like lava.