The fissures vomited them! Globes and cubes and pyramids--not small like those of the ruins, but shapes all of four feet high, dully lustrous, and deep within that luster the myriads of tiny points of light like unwinking, staring eyes.
They swirled, eddied and formed a barricade between us and the armored men.
Down upon them poured a shower of arrows from the soldiers.

I heard the shouts of their captains; they rushed.

They had courage--those men--yes! Again came the woman's cry--golden, peremptory.
Sphere and block and pyramid ran together, seemed to seethe.

I had again that sense of a quicksilver melting.

Up from them thrust a thick rectangular column.