little book which I had made discovery
of; for it told again, that which oft I had heard (even as we in this
age, read of the Deluge) how that once, in a time monstrous far back
from that, but utter future to this age of ours, the world did brake
upwards in a vast earth-quaking, that did rend the world for a thousand
miles.

And there came a mighty chasm, so deep that none might see the bottom
thereof; and there rushed therein an ocean, and the earth did burst
afresh with a sound that did shake all the cities of the world; and a
great mist lay upon the earth for many days, and there was a mighty
rain.

And, indeed, this was just so set in certain Histories of the Ancient
World. Also, there was made reference to it, within some olden Records.
Yet nowise to be taken with a serious mind, to the seeming of the
peoples of the Mighty Pyramid; but only as a quaint study for the
Students, and to be set out in little tales that did entertain the
nurseries; or, as it might be, wise men and the general.

Yet, there was this, about that small and peculiar book, that it did
speak of many of these things, as it were that it did quote from the
pens of those that did have actual witness; and set all out with a
strange gravity, that did cause one to consider it as meant to be indeed
the tellings of Truth, and to seem thiswise to have great difference
from all that I had read before concerning those matters.

And there was, further, a part in the ending of the book, that did seem
to be writ of a time that came afterwards, maybe an hundred thousand,
and maybe a million years; but who shall say.

And therein it did tell of an huge and mighty Valley that did come out
of the West, towards the South-East, and made turning thence Northwards,
and was a thousand miles both ways. And the sides thereof were an
hundred miles deep, and the Sun did stand in the Western end, and made a
red gloom for a thousand miles. And in the bottom there were great seas;
and beasts strange and awesome, and very plentiful.

Now this, as may be seen, was as the talk of Romance; yet did I turn my
wits to their natural end, and made thus plain of it. For, in truth, I
to have something of belief, and it to seem to me that in a bygone
Eternity, when the world was yet light, as in my heart I knew to have
been indeed a thing of verity, there was a great and wondrous
earthquake.

And the earthquake did burst the world up, along a certain great curve
where it had w