How long the storm lasted I would hesitate to guess within hours, but this much I can be tolerably sure of: that of all the amazing experiences I underwent during my quest of the lost land of Hellas, nothing came so near the miraculous as my escape through that tremendous tempest on a pair of artificial wings the use of which I did not fully understand. That I escaped at all I can only ascribe to the marvellous skill with which the wings had been constructed: they resisted that frightful wind by yielding to it; so well-knit were they, so cunningly blending rigidity with elasticity, so cleverly copying the wings of the feathered creation, that I imagine I must have been pretty much like a gull in a hurricane at sea, whirled along helpless on the storm, but at last recovering wing-purchase and flying again on its own power. Not least astonishing was the fact that through all that terrific buffeting by the wind the mechanism of my wings had remained unbroken and continued to work--to that also I no doubt owed in part my deliverance from a ghastly death on the crags. At last the wind suddenly fell, in the abrupt way these mountain tempests will drop; the sky had cleared and the moon shone out again, and by its light I could see the mountains below me white with great drifts of snow. Of my three pursuers and the mysterious figure who had preceded me there was no sign, and who they were or whether they perished in the storm I was never to know; but I don't fancy the form in front of me met with destruction, or could do so in the nature of things. When I say I believe that form was no bodily presence at all, but a vision sent to guide my escape, not to hinder it, I may be charged with superstition. If so, it won't distress me, or even shake my belief.