On either side of her also were walls of rough-hewn rock down which dripped water, and piled upon the floor or still hanging half-cut from the roof, boulders large enough to fashion a temple column.
"What awful place is this, my uncle ?" she asked.
"The cavern whence Solomon, the great king, drew stone for the building of the Temple.

Look, here are his mason's marks upon the wall.

Here he fashioned the blocks and thus it happened that no sound of saw or hammer was heard within the building.

Doubtless also other kings before and since his day have used this quarry, as no man knows its age." While he spoke thus he was leading her onwards over the rough, stone-hewn floor, where the damp gathered in little pools.

Following the windings of the cave they turned once, then again and yet again, so that soon Miriam was utterly bewildered and could not have found her way back to the entrance for her life's sake.