Then, as though it had received some message, abruptly its motion now ceased.
It tilted; looked down upon us! I noted that its grinding surface was studded thickly with the smaller pyramids and that the tips of these were each capped with what seemed to be faceted gems gleaming with the same pale yellow radiance as the Shrine of the Cones.
The column was bending; the wheel approaching.
Drake seized me by the arm, drew me swiftly back into the mists.

We were shrouded in their silences.

Step by step we went on, peering for the edge of the shelf, feeling in fancy that prodigious wheeled face stealing upon us; afraid to look behind lest in looking we might step too close to the unseen verge.
Yard after yard we slowly covered.

Suddenly the vapors thinned; we passed out of them-- A chaos of sound beat about us.

The clanging of a million anvils; the clamor of a million forges; the crashing of a hundred years of thunder; the roarings of a thousand hurricanes.