xactly the
same place. Three weeks later, and again I returned, this time
intentionally, to see whether the dance still continued; and it was in
full swing. That same night at midnight I climbed down, flashed a
light upon them, and there they whirled and vibrated, silently,
incredibly rapid, unceasingly.

After a thousand hours all the surroundings had changed. New leaves
had sprouted, flowers faded and turned to fruit, the moon had twice
attained her full brightness, our earth and sun and the whole solar
system had swept headlong a full two-score million miles on the
endless swing toward Vega. Only the roots and the crane-flies
remained. A thousand hours had apparently made no difference to them.
The roots might have been the granite near by, fashioned by primeval
earth-flame, and the flies but vibrating atoms within the granite,
made visible by some alchemy of elements in this weird Rim of the
World.

And so a new memory is mine; and when one of these insects comes to my
lamp in whatever part of the world, fluttering weakly, legs breaking
off at the slightest touch, I shall cease to worry about the
scientific problems that loom too great for my brain, or about the
imperfection of whatever I am doing, and shall welcome the crane-fly
and strive to free him from this fatal passion for flame, directing
him again into the night; for he may be looking for a dark pocket in a
root, a pocket on the Edge of the World, where crane-flies may vibrate
with their fellows in an eternal dance. And so, in some ordained way,
he will fulfil his destiny and I acquire merit.

* * * * *

To write of sunrises and moonlight is to commit literary harikiri; but
as that terminates life, so may I end this. And I choose the morning
and the midnight of the sixth of August, for reasons both greater and
less than cosmic. Early that morning, looking out from the beach over
the Mazacuni, as we called the union of the two great rivers, there
was wind, yet no wind, as the sun prepared to lift above the horizon.
The great soft-walled jungle was clear and distinct. Every reed at the
landing had its unbroken counterpart in the still surface. But at the
apex of the waters, the smoke of all the battles in the world had
gathered, and upon this the sun slowly concentrated his powers, until
he tore apart the cloak of mist, turning the dark surface, first to
oxidized, and then to shining quicksilver. Instantaneously the same
s