reat deepness immediately before me,
and thiswise to strive that I fall not down some monstrous cliff in the
night.

And so did I go, casting the stone continually to my front, down the
slope; and this you shall think to be a cumbersome fashion of travel;
yet was I in better case than in all the time since I had begun to go
downward of the Mighty Slope in the everlasting darkness.

And at the eighteenth hour I did sleep; and was waked strangely before
the sixth hour, even as I had waked before. And this did put always
upon me a new wonder and unease. Yet did no harm seem to come unto me,
and I did strive that I have no needful trouble of mind. But that
something was always nigh unto me in the dark, I do truly believe; yet
have I no knowing that it was evil; for it harmed not me.

And three days more I journeyed thus, and did never cease to creep
downward weariful upon my hands and knees; and the Diskos I had to my
hip, and so shall you know how I carried it. And by this, as you do
know, I had been on the Great Slope six days of utter Dark; and did have
no wotting but that I went unto some dire and dreadful place; for,
surely, I had gone for ever downward a monstrous way.

And here, before I tell further, I must set down how that the cold was
much gone from out of the air upon the slope; and the air was grown, as
it did seem, very heavy unto my chest. And concerning this matter I
should say something. For, if I do mind me, I have said not overmuch
concerning the air of the Night Land and the Mighty Pyramid; for truly I
have been so set to tell my story of all that I did truly see and
adventure upon. Yet, though I have said but little, you will surely have
perceived that the air of that far and chill time was not as the air of
this; but was thin and keen within the Night Land, and lay not, as I do
think, to a great height above the land, but only nigh to the earth.

And as you do know through my tellings, there was a wondrous difference
between the air within the Mighty Pyramid, and that which lay without
around the base; for upward beyond that, I did understand that there was
no outward air that any should breathe; and so was all the Pyramid
sealed in certain wise in all the upper Cities for ever; and whether it
was sealed _utterly_ from the outward air at the base, I do not surely
remember, if, in truth that I did ever bother my head to such matters.

Yet, if I be set proper in memory and understanding, we did draw