ng even as he died, so that the
monstrous rock that was in the hands of the brutish man, did crash down
almost upon my feet, and I leapt very high that I should escape the
thundering of the rock; for in verity, I was near slain in that last
moment of the life of the Humpt Man. But yet I lived and came free of
death, and did have a relief of happiness about my heart, as you shall
believe.

Yet, truly, I was much shaken; and a little weakness took me, so that I
was fain to go down upon the rock-shelf, that I have back my strength.

And presently, I was grown steady again, and I took my gear, and did
haste down the Rock, and so was come presently to the earth again. And I
saw the first of the Humpt Men that I did slay, lying very quiet a
little off from the bottom of the Rock; so that I went round upon the
other side to avoid the man; for it was no pleasure to mine eyes or to
my heart. And, truly, it did trouble me always to make a death.

And when I was come round upon the other, which was the seaward, side of
the Rock, I perceived that I was yet shaken; and I remembered that it
were wise to eat and drink and rest a little, before that I did go
further upon my way.

Now, as I did sit there at the bottom of the Rock, I looked upward at
the strange crown thereof; and until that time, I had been taken up with
the fight and with gazings this way and that to see whether there came
others of the Humped Men to work me an harm.

But now that I was given some ease of the mind and of the body, I saw
plainly that I knew the thing that lay upward upon the Rock; for the
shape had been something strange and half-known to me even before that
moment, as that I had a vague knowledge concerning it; but yet with no
surety. And now, truly, I did know in a little instant that the thing
was one of the olden flying-ships, the which, as you shall mind, there
were certain in the Great Museum of the Mighty Pyramid.

And surely, I was ready to wonder why that I had not seen the thing
plain before that moment; yet was this like to be because that there was
a shadow upon the other side of the great Rock; but upon this side there
was a little fire-hill a way off to the cliff edge, and this did throw a
warm light that made a glimmer upon the dull metal of the ship's bottom,
which was uncovered to my sight, and was surely of that same deathless
grey metal that made the Great Redoubt.

And yet, as you shall believe, even as I said this thing to my