Close behind us crowded the two servants and the ponies.
The vale was shallow, as I have said.

We trod the fragments of an olden approach to the green tunnel so the descent was not difficult.

Here and there beside the path upreared huge broken blocks.

On them I thought I could see faint tracings as of carvings--now a suggestion of gaping, arrow-fanged dragon jaws, now the outline of a scaled body, a hint of enormous, batlike wings.
Now we had reached the first of the crumbling piles that stretched down into the valley's center.
Half fainting, I fell against Drake, clutching to him for support.
A stream of utter hopelessness was racing upon us, swirling and eddying around us, reaching to our hearts with ghostly fingers dripping with despair.

From every shattered heap it seemed to pour, rushing down the road upon us like a torrent, engulfing us, submerging, drowning.
Unseen it was--yet tangible as water; it sapped the life from every nerve.