And here I eat four of the tablets; for truly so many were my due, and I
had not been violent had I eat more. And afterward, I made some of the
water, and it did fizz up in a moment; so that I perceived that but a
good pinch made a great cup-full. And this I set to the count of the
strong and heavy air, as I have told, which I did think to have a
greater power of chemistry.
And presently I slept, having my gear about me as ever, and the Diskos
to my breast. And as I went into slumber, I thought sweetly upon Naani,
as I had done, indeed, an hundred times since I was come to the
hopefulness of the lights of the Gorge.
Now, whilst I slept, I dreamed that the Master-Word did presently beat
all about me in the night. Yet, as I do mind, I waked not; and because
that I continued to sleep, I have no sure knowing whether this was truly
a dream, or an Happening. And I minded me upon it, when I waked; but
this was after that I had slept seven hours; and I could have no
sureness anywise of the matter; but only that I was come safe through my
sleep; though heavy within my head and limbs, as that the air did call
me unto a further slumbering, as is like enough.
And after that I had eat and drunk, I put my gear about me, and the
Diskos to my hip, for I needed both my hands to the task of journeying
amid the great boulders. And I set forth again down the half-light of
the mighty Gorge, and through eighteen hours I made a strong going, save
when I did pause at the sixth and the twelfth hours to mine eating.
And by the eighteenth hour was come, I was very ready to my food and
slumber; and presently I was asleep in a place of the rocks. And that
day had I past three and twenty of the dancing gas fires; and five been
like a white fire; but the others blue and green. And all did dance and
made a strange and uncertain light within the great Gorge; yet was it a
peaceful thing unto my spirit that there was truly light, as you shall
understand.
And I slept six hours, and waked, and did want more sleep, as you shall
think. But I eat and drunk and put my gear upon me, and went on downward
of the Gorge.
And at the sixth hour, after that I had eat and drunk, I came to a part
where the big gas fires did cease to dance, and there was a certain
darkness upon that place. Yet was it not a proper dark; for there came
the glimmer of a flame here and the glimmer of a flame there, as that
little flames came upward between the stones, and did vanish, and come
upward in another part. And so did light and die out constant and
forever amid the stones and the boulders of that lonesome Gorge; and
made a low-spread light, so that it did seem unto me that strange
shudders of light beat upward through the dark of that place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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