upon me everyway.

Yet, as it did chance, the aether was quieted in a little; for it did
need unity of the Millions (being that they were untrained to their
spiritual powers) to stir the aether. And so was I more easy of mind,
and went forward again upon my way.

Now, as it did chance, at the eighteenth hour, I was come to a place
where I heard a noise of water; and I went to my left, that I might come
upon it; and there boiled a hot fountain that went up out of the rock of
that place. And the water rose upward in a column, and was, maybe, so
thick as my body; and it fell unto the North, for the water came not up
straightly, but did shoot out from the earth unto that way. And I saw
the thing plain; for there were many fire-holes all about, as you shall
have wotted from my telling; and so was there a certain and constant
light in that part of the Land.

And I followed the water that ran from the fountain, and tried it with
mine hand; but found it to burn; and so did go further beside it; for
presently it should be no hotter than I did need. And it went onward,
winding among the moss-bushes, and sent up a constant steam, that hung
about it; and the steam made a red cloud about the way that it did go;
for the lights from the fire-holes made a shining upon it; and so was it
a wondrous pretty sight.

Now, presently, I tried the stream again, and found it to be nicely
warm; and I sat upon a little rock, and took off my foot-gear, that I
might bathe my feet, which were gone something tender; moreover, I did
ache to have the sweetness of water about me. And I made that I should
bathe my feet, and afterwards find a place among the moss-bushes, and so
eat and drink, and have my slumber.

Then, as I did sit there beside that warm stream, with my feet dabbled
therein, I heard sudden, afar off, the voice of a mighty Night-Hound,
baying in the night. And the sound came from the North-West of the Plain
of Blue Fire. And there was afterward a quiet; and you shall see me
sitting there upon the rock by the side of that smoking river, and the
steam all about me, and my feet within the lovely warmth of the water;
and I very still and frozen with a sudden fear; for, it did seem to me,
in an instant, that the Night-Hound might surely be upon the track of my
goings.

And after that there had passed a little time, the while that I did
listen very keen, lo! there burst out in the night, as it did seem
scarce a mile off, the monstrous de