Indeed, certain cracks in the floor appeared to have been filled in with some dark-coloured cement.

I stood looking at them while Bickley wandered off to the right and a little forward, and presently called to me.

I walked to him, Bastin sticking close to me as I had the other candle, as did the little dog, Tommy, who did not like these new surroundings and would not leave my heels.
"Look," said Bickley, holding up his candle, "and tell me--what's that ?" Before me, faintly shown, was some curious structure of gleaming rods made of yellowish metal, which rods appeared to be connected by wires.
The structure might have been forty feet high and perhaps a hundred long.

Its bottom part was buried in dust.
"What is that ?" asked Bickley again.
I made no answer, for I was thinking.

Bastin, however, replied: "It's difficult to be sure in this light, but I should think that it may be the remains of a cage in which some people who lived here kept monkeys, or perhaps it was an aviary.