d like
actual blows. The light glared so vividly that he was no longer able to
look at it. It had the startling irregularity of continuous lightning,
but it possessed this further peculiarity--that it seemed somehow to
give out not actual light, but emotion, seen as light. They continued to
approach the wall of darkness, straight toward the door. The glasslike
water flowed right against it, its surface reaching up almost to the
threshold.

They could not speak any more; the noise was too deafening.

In a few minutes they were before the gateway. Nightspore turned his
back and hid his eyes in his two hands, but even then he was blinded
by the light. So passionate were his feelings that his body seemed to
enlarge itself. At every frightful beat of sound, he quivered violently.

The entrance was doorless. Krag jumped onto the rocky platform and
pulled Nightspore after him.

Once through the gateway, the light vanished. The rhythmical
sound--blows totally ceased. Nightspore dropped his hands.... All was
dark and quiet as an opened tomb. But the air was filled with grim,
burning passion, which was to light and sound what light itself is to
opaque colour.

Nightspore pressed his hand to his heart. "I don't know if I can endure
it," he said, looking toward Krag. He felt his person far more vividly
and distinctly than if he had been able to see him.

"Go in, and lose no time, Nightspore.... Time here is more precious than
on earth. We can't squander the minutes. There are terrible and tragic
affairs to attend to, which won't wait for us... Go in at once. Stop for
nothing."

"Where shall I go to?" muttered Nightspore. "I have forgotten
everything."

"Enter, enter! There is only one way. You can't mistake it."

"Why do you bid me go in, if I am to come out again?"

"To have your wounds healed."

Almost before the words had left his mouth, Krag sprang back on to the
island raft. Nightspore involuntarily started after him, but at
once recovered himself and remained standing where he was. Krag was
completely invisible; everything outside was black night.

The moment he had gone, a feeling shot up in Nightspore's heart like a
thousand trumpets.

Straight in front of him, almost at his feet, was the lower end of a
steep, narrow, circular flight of stone steps. There was no other way
forward.

He put his foot on the bottom stair, at the same time peering aloft.
He saw nothing, yet as he proceeded upward every inch of