And for two days I did make a safe coasting of the Plain of Blue Fire;
and did keep well off, maybe two great miles, among the moss-bushes. And
I made a very good speed through the darkness. And at the eighteenth
hour of each journey, I made a place for my slumber; and the first I did
manage under a thick bush; but the second was high upon the ledge of a
rock that grew upward in the night amid the bushes. And, save that I was
bitter cold there did no harm come to me. And in all that time of
journeying, I had no sight of the Mighty Pyramid; for the blind shining
of the Plain of Blue Fire was ever between.
Now there had been certain little matters in my journey beside the Plain
of Blue Fire, which I have not set down; for they were of no account,
and do but repeat much that I have told before. And, indeed, there was
naught in that part of my journey, save that I did pass nineteen great
fire-holes, and four small; and did observe no life beside any, save
about one of the great holes that there was no hollow around, and here I
did happen to see some strange and ugly creatures so big as my head,
that did have a look of the scorpion of this Age; but proportioned more
squat and thick. Yet, though they were naught to remark upon in that
Land, they had been but woeful bedmates to any man; as you may think.
And you shall know how it gave a rest to my spirit, that I did go so
long with no trouble of the Monsters of the Night, or the Evil Forces
thereof. And I grew bolder to my journeying, and made ever a greater
speed of going; and it was like that I took presently a less heed for my
safety, which was a wrong and foolish state. Yet there came no harm unto
me, in all that part of my travel.
Then, it was in the sixteenth hour of the third day of my journey beside
the Plain, that I did come out beyond the end of it, and had fresh sight
of the Mighty Pyramid, afar in the night upon my Right. And I stopt
there in a bare place among the moss-bushes, and did in a weak moment
hold up the Diskos, so that I make a salute unto the Pyramid, Mine Home;
for truly was I so utter glad to behold it once more.
And in a little while was I aware that there was a disturbance of the
aether of the world all about me; so that it did seem that there had
been one at the Great Spy-Glass to watch for my coming into their sight
from behind the shining of the Plain of Blue Fire.
And it was like that news had gone downward through the Cities of the
Great Redoubt; so that they did print the word of it in the Hour-Slips;
and by this there would be many great Millions thinking upon me, and a
rushing unto the Embrasures, that they might spy out at me. Yet I doubt
that any glass might perceive me surely at so great a space, save the
power of the Great Spy-Glass in the Tower of Observation. But the
Emotion of the Millions to reach to me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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