this darkness
should truly mean.

And so did I go downward again into the night of that Land, at the first
with a carefulness; but presently with a fierce eagerness and expecting
of the heart, the which had been dulled a little time with the horrid
shaking and pain of my fall.

Now I had climbed unto the upper plain of the great volcano in, maybe,
thirteen hours; but I went downward of that great Hill in ten, and had
made a greater speed, but that I was sore shaken and unsure, by reason
of my fall.

And in the end of the tenth hour, I perceived that I was come again to
the great Plain of the Land; and I had no more any proper sight of the
Refuge, because that it was upward afar in the darkness of the night.
Yet was I abled now to see that there went a bulk between me and the far
shinings, and did know that this great thing was surely the hill on
which the Pyramid did stand.

And I went four hours across the Land, and did pass in this place and
that, fire-holes that made a little red-shining in the night; and
because of the fires in those far parts and a-near, there was not an
utter dark.

And when I was gone four hours towards the Pyramid, I could no more see
the distant shinings, for the bulk of the hill-bottom stood up between,
and made all a blackness that way. And by this thing, I did guess that I
was come nigh unto the hill; but yet was a great hour more before that I
came to it. And in that five hours, since I was come down from the great
Volcano, there had past me thrice and again, the sounds of things
running in the night, and once there did be a sound as of a giant
roaring afar, and a strange and horrid screaming.

Now I began to go up the hill. And, at the first, an utter excitement
took me in the heart; so that I could have shouted the name of the Maid
aloud in the night, with vain hopings that she should hear me and make
an answer. But this state went from me very swift, as I did go upward,
and there came a caution again about me, and a coldness of fear, as that
my spirit did wot of something that my heart did not perceive.

And, presently, I was come upward almost to the top of the hill, the
which took me nigh three hours. And surely, when I was come that I could
see the grimness of the Pyramid, going upward very desolate and silent
into the night, lo! an utter shaking fear did take me; for the sweet
cunning of my spirit did know that there abode no human in all that
great and dark bulk; but that