And now Graham beheld men running down among the wind-wheels, pointing weapons from which jetted out little smoky flashes.
They swarmed thicker and thicker to the right, gesticulating--it might be they were shouting, but of that the picture told nothing.

They and the wind-wheels passed slowly and steadily across the field of the mirror.
"Now," said Ostrog, "comes the Council House," and slowly a black edge crept into view and gathered Graham's attention.

Soon it was no longer an edge but a cavity, a huge blackened space amidst the clustering edifices, and from it thin spires of smoke rose into the pallid winter sky.

Gaunt ruinous masses of the building, mighty truncated piers and girders, rose dismally out of this cavernous darkness.

And over these vestiges of some splendid place, countless minute men were clambering, leaping, swarming.
"This is the Council House," said Ostrog.