l bush were emitting mental waves, which with his
breve he could clearly distinguish. They cried out silently, "To me To
me!" While he looked, a flying worm guided itself through the air to
one of these blossoms and began to suck its nectar. The floral cry
immediately ceased.

They now gained the crest of the mountain, and looked down beyond.
A lake occupied its crater-like cavity. A fringe of trees partly
intercepted the view, but Maskull was able to perceive that this
mountain lake was nearly circular and perhaps a quarter of a mile
across. Its shore stood a hundred feet below them.

Observing that his hosts did not propose to descend, he begged them to
wait for him, and scrambled down to the surface. When he got there, he
found the water perfectly motionless and of a colourless transparency.
He walked onto it, lay down at full length, and peered into the depths.
It was weirdly clear: he could see down for an indefinite distance,
without arriving at any bottom. Some dark, shadowy objects, almost out
of reach of his eyes, were moving about. Then a sound, very faint and
mysterious, seemed to come up through the gnawl water from an immense
depth. It was like the rhythm of a drum. There were four beats of equal
length, but the accent was on the third. It went on for a considerable
time, and then ceased.

The sound appeared to him to belong to a different world from that
in which he was travelling. The latter was mystical, dreamlike, and
unbelievable--the drumming was like a very dim undertone of reality.
It resembled the ticking of a clock in a room full of voices, only
occasionally possible to be picked up by the ear.

He rejoined Panawe and Joiwind, but said nothing to them about his
experience. They all walked round the rim of the crater, and gazed down
on the opposite side. Precipices similar to those that had overlooked
the desert here formed the boundary of a vast moorland plain, whose
dimensions could not be measured by the eye. It was solid land, yet
he could not make out its prevailing colour. It was as if made of
transparent glass, but it did not glitter in the sunlight. No objects in
it could be distinguished, except a rolling river in the far distance,
and, farther off still, on the horizon, a line of dark mountains, of
strange shapes. Instead of being rounded, conical, or hogbacked, these
heights were carved by nature into the semblance of castle battlements,
but with extremely deep indentations.

The s