But he was intensely interested in all about him.  The avenues were large.  On either side the guards were drawn up eight deep, holding back the multitude that pressed and jostled with the insistence of curiosity.  He looked into the myriad faces; about him, splendid features, of intelligent man and women.

Not one face suggested the hideous; the women were especially beautiful, and, from what he could see, finely formed and graceful.  Many of them smiled; he could hear the curious buzz of conjecturing whispers.  Some were indifferent, while others, from the expression of their faces, were openly hostile.

Chick was in the middle of a procession, the Rhamdas marching before and the crimson guard bringing up the rear.  A special guard:  the inner one, Rhamdas, the outer one of crimson surrounding them all.

The car started.  There was no trace of friction; it was noiseless, automatic.  Chick could only conjecture as to its mechanism.  The black column of Rhamdas moved ahead rhythmically, with the swing of solemn grandeur.  For some minutes they marched through the streets of the Mahovisal.  There was no cheering; it was a holy, awesome occasion.  Chick could sense the undercurrent of the staring thousands, the reverence and the piety.  It was the Day of the Prophet.  They were staring at a miracle.

The column turned a corner.  For the first time Watson was staggered by sheer immensity; for the first time he felt what it might be to see with the eyes of an insect.  Had he been an ant looking up at the columns of Karnak, he would still have been out of proportion.  It was immense, colossal, beyond man.  It was of the omnipotent—­the pillared portal of the Temple of the Bell.

Such a building a genius might dream of, in a moment of unhampered, inspired imagination.  It was stupendous.  The pillars were hexagonal in shape, and in diameter each of about the size of an ordinary house.  Dropping from an immense height, it seemed as if they had originally poured out in the form of molten metal from immense bell-like flares that fell from the vaulted architrave.  Such was the design.

Chick got the impression that the top of the structure, somehow, was not supported by the foundation, but rather the reverse—­the floor was suspended from the ceiling.  It was the work of the Titans—­so high and stupendous that at the first instant Watson felt numb with insignificance.  What chance had he against men of such colossal conception.

How large the building was he could not see.  The Gargantuan facade itself was enough to smother comprehension.  It was laid out in the form of a triangle, one end of which was open towards the city; the two sections of the facade met under a huge, arched opening—­ the door itself.  Watson recognised the structure as the one he had seen from the June Bug on the outskirts of the Mahovisal.  The enormous plaza was packed with people, leaving only a narrow lane for the procession; and as far back as Chick could see crowds in the streets converged towards this vast space.  Their numbers were incalculable.