something like dry, powdery peat. To my dismay it gave a momentary heave
under me; then presently I saw what seemed the ripple of an earthquake
running on before me, shadowy in the low moon. It passed into the
distance; but, while yet I stared after it, a single wave rose up, and
came slowly toward me. A yard or two away it burst, and from it, with a
scramble and a bound, issued an animal like a tiger. About his mouth and
ears hung clots of mould, and his eyes winked and flamed as he rushed
at me, showing his white teeth in a soundless snarl. I stood fascinated,
unconscious of either courage or fear. He turned his head to the ground,
and plunged into it.

"That moon is affecting my brain," I said as I resumed my journey. "What
life can be here but the phantasmic--the stuff of which dreams are made?
I am indeed walking in a vain show!"

Thus I strove to keep my heart above the waters of fear, nor knew that
she whom I distrusted was indeed my defence from the realities I took
for phantoms: her light controlled the monsters, else had I scarce taken
a second step on the hideous ground. "I will not be appalled by that
which only seems!" I said to myself, yet felt it a terrible thing to
walk on a sea where such fishes disported themselves below. With that, a
step or two from me, the head of a worm began to come slowly out of the
earth, as big as that of a polar bear and much resembling it, with a
white mane to its red neck. The drawing wriggles with which its huge
length extricated itself were horrible, yet I dared not turn my eyes
from them. The moment its tail was free, it lay as if exhausted,
wallowing in feeble effort to burrow again.

"Does it live on the dead," I wondered, "and is it unable to hurt the
living? If they scent their prey and come out, why do they leave me
unharmed?"

I know now it was that the moon paralysed them.

All the night through as I walked, hideous creatures, no two alike,
threatened me. In some of them, beauty of colour enhanced loathliness
of shape: one large serpent was covered from head to distant tail with
feathers of glorious hues.

I became at length so accustomed to their hurtless menaces that I
fell to beguiling the way with the invention of monstrosities, never
suspecting that I owed each moment of life to the staring moon. Though
hers was no primal radiance, it so hampered the evil things, that I
walked in safety. For light is yet light, if but the last of a countless
series of