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Reptiles that they are, the rough surface of a great stone
is to them as plush as upholstery to us. Here they lolled,
blinking their hideous eyes, and doubtless conversing with
one another in their sixth-sense- fourth-dimension language.
For the first time I beheld their queen. She differed
from the others in no feature that was appreciable
to my earthly eyes, in fact all Mahars look alike to me:
but when she crossed the arena after the balance of her
female subjects had found their bowlders, she was preceded
by a score of huge Sagoths, the largest I ever had seen,
and on either side of her waddled a huge thipdar,
while behind came another score of Sagoth guardsmen.
At the barrier the Sagoths clambered up the steep side
with truly apelike agility, while behind them the haughty
queen rose upon her wings with her two frightful dragons
close beside her, and settled down upon the largest
bowlder of them all in the exact center of that side of
the amphitheater which is reserved for the dominant race.
Here she squatted, a most repulsive and uninteresting queen;
though doubtless quite as well assured of her beauty
and divine right to rule as the proudest monarch of the
outer world.
And then the music started--music without sound! The Mahars
cannot hear, so the drums and fifes and horns of earthly
bands are unknown among them. The "band" consists of a
score or more Mahars. It filed out in the center of the
arena where the creatures upon the rocks might see it,
and there it performed for fifteen or twenty minutes.
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