He stumbled a few times, swearing petulantly, locating the doorway again and groping through it into the Hall of Music. The windows out here were just as dirty; no use trying to see through them. There must have been a time when he had enjoyed looking through them. He stood shivering in the marble silence, trying to remember. He could not. Time was a gradual eternal dying. Time was a long growth of dirt and ocean salt, sealing in, covering over forever. He stumbled for his cave, hurrying now, and lit two candles. He left one by the cold stove and used the other to light his way down the stairs to his raft. Once down there, he blew it out, afraid. The room a candle makes in the darkness is a vulnerable room. With no walls, it closes in a blindness. He pulled the raft by the guide-rope, gently, for fear of noise. He found his canoe tied as he had left it. He poked his white head slowly beyond the sill, staring west. Merely a bonfire gleaming, reddening the blackness of the cliff. Brian knew the spot, a ledge almost at water level. At one end of it was the troublesome path he used in climbing up to the forest. Usable driftwood was often there, the supply renewed by the high tides. "No," Brian said. "Oh, no...." Unable to accept, or believe, or not believe, he drew his head in, resting his forehead on the coldness of the sill, waiting for dizziness to pass, reason to return. Then rather calm, he once more leaned out over the sill. The fire still shone and was therefore not a disordered dream of old age, but it was dying to a dull rose of embers. * * * * * He wondered a little about time. The Museum clocks and watches had stopped long ago; Brian had ceased to want them. A sliver of moon was hanging over the water to the east. He ought to be able to remember the phases, deduce the approximate time from that. But his mind was too tired or distraught to give him the necessary data. Maybe it was somewhere around midnight. He climbed on the sill and, with grunting effort, lifted the canoe over it to the motionless water inside. Wasted energy, he decided, as soon as that struggle was over. That fire had been lit before daylight passed; whoever lit it would have seen the canoe, might even have been watching Brian himself come home from his hunting. The canoe's disappearance in the night would only rouse further curiosity. But Brian was too exhausted to lift it back. * * * * * Why assume that the maker of the bonfire was necessarily hostile? Might be good company. Might be.... Brian pulled his raft through the darkness, secured it at the stairway, and groped back to his cave.