The mysterious chase went on. I don't think my pursuers were any longer gaining on me from behind, but I seemed to be steadily closing up with the figure in front, and was at last so near that I could almost distinguish the outlines of the body borne by those wings. It may be the moonlight and the wild frenzy of the escape deluded me, but the longer I looked the deeper grew my impression that what I saw was the figure of a woman. Moreover, though I was now a good deal nearer to this figure than to those behind, it seemed curiously less distinct, and grew less and less distinct the nearer I came. At any other time this would no doubt have amazed me, but amazement was a faculty of which I was no longer capable. Then the figures behind grew indistinct also. They seemed to be melting into a veil of grey mist, which was approaching me a good deal faster than they. Then all became dark, the moon was blotted out, and I realised what that strange mistiness really meant. With a blow that struck like something solid the tempest overtook me, hurling me forward with a frightful access of speed. I summoned every ounce of strength and nerve that was in me, and hung on. In an instant I was whelmed in the blackness of the Pit, whirled literally like an autumn leaf in a scurry of wind, conscious of nothing but the screaming wrath of the elements all round me and blank despair within. This, it seemed, was the end of all. I had lost control, was borne on and held up by the strength of the storm alone; sooner or later some devilish caprice of the wind must drop me, as a wanton child may break a plaything it is tired of, and then it would only be a matter of moments for me to be dashed against the cliffs and crags of the mountain side and find a death mercifully instantaneous. To steer was utterly out of the question, even to keep my equilibrium impossible; once I was tossed high and flung over and over like a bounding ball, until my head spun and my eyes were full of blood and I thought the straps of the wings must tear out the shoulders from my body; yet even here the very force of the tempest was my salvation, for though I fell, long before I neared the face of the mountain I had been caught up in a fresh blast of wind and hurled forward more furiously than before.