rown himself, had it been deeper. He rolled about in it, in
spite of its flinty and rocky bed. When he came out of it, his tunic
sticking to him, he tore it off his shoulders, and let it hang round his
girdle in shreds, as it might. The shock of the water, however, acted as a
sedative upon him, and the coolness of the night refreshed him. He walked
on for a while in silence.

Suddenly the power within him began uttering, by means of his organs of
speech, the most fearful blasphemies, words embodying conceptions which,
had they come into his mind, he might indeed have borne with patience
before this, or uttered in bravado, but which now filled him with
inexpressible loathing, and a terror to which he had hitherto been quite a
stranger. He had always in his heart believed in a God, but he now
believed with a reality and intensity utterly new to him. He felt it as if
he saw Him; he felt there was a world of good and evil beings. He did not
love the good, or hate the evil; but he shrank from the one, and he was
terrified at the other; and he felt himself carried away, against his
will, as the prey of some dreadful, mysterious power, which tyrannised
over him.

The day had closed--the moon had risen. He plunged into the thickest wood,
and the trees seemed to him to make way for him. Still they seemed to moan
and to creak as they moved out of their place. Soon he began to see that
they were looking at him, and exulting over his misery. They, of an
inferior nature, had had no gift which they could abuse and lose; and they
remained in that honour and perfection in which they were created. Birds
of the night flew out of them, reptiles slunk away; yet soon he began to
be surrounded, wherever he went, by a circle of owls, bats, ravens, crows,
snakes, wild cats, and apes, which were always looking at him, but somehow
made way, retreating before him, and yet forming again, and in order, as
he marched along.

He had passed through the wing of the forest which he had entered, and
penetrated into the more mountainous country. He ascended the heights; he
was a taller, stronger man than he had been; he went forward with a
preternatural vigour, and flourished his arms with the excitement of some
vinous or gaseous intoxication. He heard the roar of the wild beasts
echoed along the woody ravines which were cut into the solid mountain
rock, with a reckless feeling, as if he could cope with them. As he passed
the dens of the lion, leopard,