But where the lake had
been there was now only a shallow depression covered with grey sand and
brown rock.
Into this they descended and touched the lunar surface for the last
time. A couple of hours' excursion among the houses proved that they had
been the last refuge of the last descendants of a dying race, a race
which had socially degenerated just as the succession of cities had done
architecturally, age by age, as the long-drawn struggle for mere
existence had become keener and keener until the two last essentials,
air and water, had failed--and then the end had come.
The streets, like the square of the great Temple of Tycho, were strewn
with myriads and myriads of bones, and there were myriads more scattered
round what had once been the shores of the dwindling lake. Here, as
elsewhere, there was not a sign or a record of any kind--carving or
sculpture. If there were any such on the surface of the moon they had
not discovered them. The buildings which they had seen evidently
belonged to the decadent period during which the dwindling remnants of
the Selenites asked only to eat and drink and breathe.
Inside the great Pyramid of the City of Tycho they might, perhaps, have
found something--some stone or tablet which bore the mark of the
artist's hand; elsewhere, perhaps, they might have found cities reared
by older races, which might have rivalled the creations of Egypt and
Babylon, but they had neither time nor inclination to look for these.
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