parison have fancied
himself to be moving beneath the dome of some little, closed-in
cathedral. He realised that he was on a foreign planet. But he was not
stirred or uplifted by the knowledge; he was conscious only of moral
ideas. Looking backward, he saw the plain, which for several miles
past had been without vegetation, stretching back away to Disscourn.
So regular had been the ascent, and so great was the distance, that the
huge pyramid looked nothing more than a slight swelling on the face of
the earth.

Spadevil stopped, and gazed over the landscape in silence. In the
evening sunlight his form looked more dense, dark, and real than ever
before. His features were set hard in grimness.

He turned around to his companions. "What is the greatest wonder, in all
this wonderful scene?" he demanded.

"Acquaint us," said Maskull.

"All that you see is born from pleasure, and moves on, from pleasure to
pleasure. Nowhere is right to be found. It is Shaping's world."

"There is another wonder," said Tydomin, and she pointed her finger
toward the sky overhead.

A small cloud, so low down that it was perhaps not more than five
hundred feet above them, was sailing along in front of the dark wall
of cliff. It was in the exact shape of an open human hand, with
downward-pointing fingers. It was stained crimson by the sun; and one
or two tiny cloudlets beneath the fingers looked like falling drops of
blood.

"Who can doubt now that our death is close at hand?" said Tydomin. "I
have been close to death twice today. The first time I was ready, but
now I am more ready, for I shall die side by side with the man who has
given me my first happiness."

"Do not think of death, but of right persistence," replied Spadevil. "I
am not here to tremble before Shaping's portents; but to snatch men from
him."

He at once proceeded to lead the way up the staircase. Tydomin gazed
upward after him for a moment, with an odd, worshiping light in her
eyes. Then she followed him, the second of the party. Maskull climbed
last. He was travel stained, unkempt, and very tired; but his soul was
at peace. As they steadily ascended the almost perpendicular stairs, the
sun got higher in the sky. Its light dyed their bodies a ruddy gold.

They gained the top. There they found rolling in front of them, as far
as the eye could see, a barren desert of white sand, broken here and
there by large, jagged masses of black rock. Tracts of the sand were
redde