w foreign land he would quietly accept things as he found them. The
laughter of God was too strange to understand.

No, there was no answer. He was doubly damned, for he had made truth a
mere sport of intellectual riddling. The mind, like a spinning flywheel
of fatigued steel, was gradually racked to bursting by the conflict
of stresses. And yet: every equilibrium was an opposure of forces.
Rotation, if swift enough, creates amazing stability: he had seen how
the gyroscope can balance at apparently impossible angles. Perhaps it
was so of the mind. If it twirls at high speed it can lean right out
over the abyss without collapse. But the stationary mind--he thought
of Bishop Borzoi--must keep away from the edge. Try to force it to
the edge, it raves in panic. Every mind, very likely, knows its own
frailties, and does well to safeguard them. At any rate, that was the
most generous interpretation. Most minds, undoubtedly, were uneasy in
high places. They doubted their ability to refrain from jumping off.
How many bones of fine intellects lay whitening at the foot of the
theological cliff--It seemed to be a lonely coast, and wintry.
Patches of snow lay upon the hills, the woods were bare and brown. A
bottle-necked harbour opened out before him. He reduced the engines to
Dead Slow and glided gaily through the strait. He had been anxious lest
his navigation might not be equal to the occasion: he did not want to
disgrace himself at this final test. But all seemed to arrange itself
with enchanted ease. A steep ledge of ground offered a natural pier,
with tree-stumps for bollards. He let her come gently beyond the spot;
reversed the propellers just at the right time, and backed neatly
alongside. He moved the telegraph handle to FINISHED WITH ENGINES; ran
out the gangplank smartly, and stepped ashore. He moored the vessel fore
and aft, and hung out fenders to prevent chafing.

The first thing to do, he said to himself, is to get the lie of the
land, and find out whether it is inhabited.

A hillside rising above the water promised a clear view. The stubble
grass was dry and frosty, after the warm days at sea the chill was
nipping; but what an elixir of air! If this is a desert island, he
thought, it will be a glorious discovery. His heart was jocund with
anticipation. A curious foreign look in the landscape, he thought; quite
unlike anything--Suddenly, where the hill arched against pearly sky, he
saw narrow thread of smoke rising