Then he
lost his path another time, missed entirely the village of Maubert,
where he had thought to find a conveyance, or at least a guide, and in
the silver and purple mystery of a perfect moonlight night found
himself looking down from a hilltop upon Montpellier-le-Vieux.
Rumour had prepared him to know the place when he saw it, nothing for
its stupendous lunacy. Heaven knows what convulsion or measured process
of Nature accomplished this thing. For his part Duchemin was unable to
accept any possible scientific explanation, and will go to his grave
believing that some half-witted cyclops, back beyond the dimmest dawn
of Time, created Montpellier-le-Vieux in an hour of idleness, building
him a play city of titanic monoliths, then wandered away and forgot it
altogether.
He saw what seemed to be a city at least two miles in length, more than
half as wide, a huddle of dwellings of every shape and size, a
labyrinth of narrow, tortuous streets broken here and there by wide and
stately avenues, with public squares and vast cirques (of such
amphitheatres he counted no less than six) and walls commanded by a
citadel.
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