oubt, and of all that strange and monstrous Land.
And, above all these, I to be shaken unto my very heart, that I have the
Maid speedy unto safety; lest, after all, even though we to have come so
far, there somewhat to happen of woe. And all this did make it a hard
thing that we not to begin to race, and to exceed the hours that we did
set; but truly we had wisdom in this matter, and slumbered alway after
the sixteenth hour.

And we never to see aught of life in all that great and desolate Gorge;
for there did be only the gas-burnings, and the boulders and the stark
rocks, and oft the rank smellings of the gases. And alway an utter and
everlasting quiet; save when some lonesome gas-fire did oddly to moan
or to whistle, and the whistling to sound very dree across the great
waste of the Gorge, and likewise the moaning to be but a thing to make
the loneliness to be felt in the heart; and the Maid to feel thus with
me.

And alway, as I did know, she to think in her heart that I did come
through that place alone to make a searching for her into the unknown
lands of the world; and surely, I did be but a natural man if that I was
something happy in my heart that Mine Own so to ponder and to remember;
for thereby did her love seem ever to grow. And likewise, a man doth be
glad in his spirit and natural pride, that his Maid to know that he hath
done wholesomely of his best for her need. And you but to think upon the
love-days, and to hear the echoes of those dear proud thoughts that did
so to swell in you; and doth not all to go so strangely with familiar
pain in the old way?

Now it was upon the fifth day, in about the seventh hour, that I heard
oddwhiles a sound in this place and that of the Gorge, as that the rocks
made husht and strange sounds at us. And I to have the Maid instant very
nigh to me, and the Diskos to my hand, and we then to go onward with a
great caution.

And thrice we did pass places where gas-fires did burn and dance, and
made oft a low moaning, and somewhiles a little whistling; and the other
sounds yet to come oddly from the rocks, in this place and that, very
strange and unthought of, yet to be something familiar.

And sudden, it did come to me that there to be a far-away noise in these
sounds; though they to seem to come from this place and that almost to
mine elbow, as you should say. And lo! I knew then that I harked unto
little echoings, that did be caught by the near rocks, and to come from
so