t or outline,
became several degrees more stern and sacred. When he looked at Corpang
he was impressed by his aspect of Gothic awfulness, but the perplexed
expression was still in his eyes.

"Do you spend all your time here, Corpang?"

"Occasionally I go above, but not often."

"What fastens you to this gloomy world?"

"The search for Thire."

"Then it's still a search?"

"Let us walk on."

As they resumed their journey across the dim, gradually rising plain,
the conversation became even more earnest in character than before.
"Although I was not born here," proceeded Corpang, "I've lived here for
twenty-five years, and during all that time I have been drawing nearer
to Thire, as I hope. But there is this peculiarity about it--the first
stages are richer in fruit and more promising than the later ones. The
longer a man seeks Thire, the more he seems to absent himself. In the
beginning he is felt and known, sometimes as a shape, sometimes as a
voice, sometimes an overpowering emotion. Later on all is dry, dark, and
harsh in the soul. Then you would think that Thire was a million miles
off."

"How do you explain that?"

"When everything is darkest, he may be nearest, Maskull."

"But this is troubling you?"

"My days are spent in torture."

"You still persist, though? This day darkness can't be the ultimate
state?"

"My questions will be answered."

A silence ensued.

"What do you propose to show me?" asked Maskull.

"The land is about to grow wilder. I am taking you to the Three Figures,
which were carved and erected by an earlier race of men. There, we will
pray."

"And what then?"

"If you are truehearted, you will see things you will not easily
forget."

They had been walking slightly uphill in a sort of trough between two
parallel, gently sloping downs. The trough now deepened, while the hills
on either side grew steeper. They were in an ascending valley and, as
it curved this way and that, the landscape was shut off from view.
They came to a little spring, bubbling up from the ground. It formed
a trickling brook, which was unlike all other brooks in that it was
flowing up the valley instead of down. Before long it was joined by
other miniature rivulets, so that in the end it became a fair-sized
stream. Maskull kept looking at it, and puckering his forehead.

"Nature has other laws here, it seems?"

"Nothing can exist here that is not a compound of the three worlds."

"Yet the water is f