And all suddenly I found myself within a vast clear space,--ringed about by palms so lofty that their tops appeared to touch the sky, and their shadows darkened all within the circle of them. And there was a great silence awhile, broken only by the whispering of waters. My feet made no sound, so thick was the moss I trod upon; and from the circle of the palms on every side the ground sloped down to a great basin of shimmering water. So clear it was that I could perceive sparkles of gold in the sands below; and the water seemed forced upward in a mighty underflow from the centre of the basin, where there was a deep, dark place. And into the bright basin there trickled streamlets also from beneath the roots of the immense trees; and I became aware of a great subterrene murmuring, as if those waters--which are beneath the earth--were all seeking to burst their way up to the sun. Then, being foredone with heat and weariness, I doffed my armor and my apparel and plunged into the pool of the fountain. And I discovered that the brightness of the water had deluded me; for so deep was it that by diving I could not reach the bottom. Neither was the fountain tepid as are the slow river currents of that strange land, but of a pleasant frigidness,--like those waters that leap among the rocks of Castile. And I felt a new strength and a puissant joy, as one having long traveled with burning feet through some fevered and fiery land feeleth new life when the freshness of sea-winds striketh against his face, and the jocund brawling of the great billows smiteth his ears through the silence of desolation. And the joyousness I knew as a boy seemed to flame through all my blood again,--so that I sported in the luminous ripples and laughed aloud, and uttered shouts of glee; and high above me in the ancient trees wonderful birds mocked my shoutings and answered my laughter hoarsely, as with human voices. And when I provoked them further, they did imitate my speech till it seemed that a thousand echoes repeated me. And, having left the fount, no hunger nor weariness weighed upon me,--but I yielded unto a feeling of delicious drowsihead, and laid me down upon the moss to sleep as deeply as an infant sleepeth.