From every girder and column, from every arras, pendent and looping, burst diamond glitterings, ruby luminescences, lanced flames of molten emerald and sapphires, flashings of amethyst and opal, meteoric iridescences, dazzling spectrums.
The hollow was a cave of some Aladdin of the Titans ablaze with enchanted hoards.

It was a place of gems ensorcelled, gems in which imprisoned hosts of the Jinns of Light beat sparkling against their crystal walls to escape.
I thrust the fantasies from me.

Fantastic enough was this reality--globe and pyramid and cube of the Metal People opening wide, bathing in, drinking from the radiant maelstrom that faster and ever faster swirled about them.
"Feeding!" It was Drake's awed voice.

"Feeding on the sun!" The circling shields were raising themselves, lifting themselves higher above the crater-lip.

Into the crowded cylinder came now only the rays from the high circlets, the streams from the huge wheel above the still growing cones.
Up and up the shields rose, but by what mechanism raised I could not see.