Nightspore’s heart beat wildly. “Shall I remember?” he muttered. “Yes, you’ll remember.” “Accompany me, Krag, or I shall be lost.” “There is nothing for me to do in there. I shall wait outside for you.” “You are returning to the struggle?” demanded Nightspore, gnawing his fingertips. “Yes.” “I dare not.” The thunderous clangor of the rhythmical beats struck on his head like actual blows. The light glared so vividly that he was no longer able to look at it. It had the startling irregularity of continuous lightning, but it possessed this further peculiarity—that it seemed somehow to give out not actual light, but emotion, seen as light. They continued to approach the wall of darkness, straight toward the door. The glasslike water flowed right against it, its surface reaching up almost to the threshold. They could not speak any more; the noise was too deafening. In a few minutes they were before the gateway. Nightspore turned his back and hid his eyes in his two hands, but even then he was blinded by the light. So passionate were his feelings that his body seemed to enlarge itself. At every frightful beat of sound, he quivered violently. The entrance was doorless. Krag jumped onto the rocky platform and pulled Nightspore after him. Once through the gateway, the light vanished. The rhythmical sound—blows totally ceased. Nightspore dropped his hands.... All was dark and quiet as an opened tomb. But the air was filled with grim, burning passion, which was to light and sound what light itself is to opaque colour. Nightspore pressed his hand to his heart. “I don’t know if I can endure it,” he said, looking toward Krag. He felt his person far more vividly and distinctly than if he had been able to see him. “Go in, and lose no time, Nightspore.... Time here is more precious than on earth. We can’t squander the minutes. There are terrible and tragic affairs to attend to, which won’t wait for us... Go in at once. Stop for nothing.” “Where shall I go to?” muttered Nightspore. “I have forgotten everything.” “Enter, enter! There is only one way. You can’t mistake it.” “Why do you bid me go in, if I am to come out again?” “To have your wounds healed.” Almost before the words had left his mouth, Krag sprang back on to the island raft. Nightspore involuntarily started after him, but at once recovered himself and remained standing where he was. Krag was completely invisible; everything outside was black night. The moment he had gone, a feeling shot up in Nightspore’s heart like a thousand trumpets. ***** Straight in front of him, almost at his feet, was the lower end of a steep, narrow, circular flight of stone steps. There was no other way forward. He put his foot on the bottom stair, at the same time peering aloft. He saw nothing, yet as he proceeded upward every inch of the way was perceptible to his inner feelings. The staircase was cold, dismal, and deserted, but it seemed to him, in his exaltation of soul, like a ladder to heaven.