i, and she to look
upward to the cave, and to wish that she might come a moment into it;
only that it did be twenty good feet upward, and I to desire that she
run no risk of her dear life, when that there did be no need.

And so to go onward; and odd whiles to see strange things a-lurk among
the boulders; but none to come anigh to us; yet did I keep the Diskos
very ready in my hand, as you shall think; and had mine eyes alway to
look upon every side, and mine ears to be wary; and to use my spirit
alway to mine aid.

And surely, as we did come lower in the Gorge, the Maid was all
a-wondered at the warmness that did grow, and something disturbed in the
first, by the new thickness, as it did seem, of the air. And she to
waste some of the water, because that it did fizz up so quick, even as
I, until that she was come used to this newness. And all this to be very
plain unto you.

And in the end of every journey, we slept eight good hours in a safe
place; and so to go onward again; and the Maid to grow very eager as I
did tell her this thing and that of the Country that we did come
downward unto.

And she askt me questions, time and oft, and much I told her, and she to
think upon it with a growing wonder and desire, even as a gladsome child
that hath never seen the sea, and doth be told that it shall presently
be there. And this to be but to shadow the way that Naani did be; for
truly she did be a very live and eager maid, in all things.

And we to be still within the Gorge, and to go constant by the
fire-holes and the fire-pits, and to see the flames leap upward in this
place and that, so that the mighty walls of the Gorge would show very
plain in an instant; and immediately to come the shadows again, and
afterward the leaping of the flames. And so did it be forever. And oft
the muttering of the fire-pits; and oft the utter quiet and the shadows.

And this time and that there did be a snake to go by us, and the
scuttling of the monster scorpions; and mayhap a moving in the shadows
of the great boulders, that did tell me there went maybe some peculiar
monster in that place; so that I did be very wary, and to have the
Diskos alway ready.

And when the fourth day was come, I showed the Maid, in the sixth hour,
the ledge that did be my first sleeping place, when that I was entered
into the Gorge.

Now presently, in the eleventh hour, after that we had gone five hours
in a gloom, there did show afar off a shining; and I