still when
by us long since forgotten. Other temples they have--who knows to what
divinities?
And he that was destined alone of men to come to the City of Never was
well content to behold it as he trotted down its agate street, with
the wings of his hippogriff furled, seeing at either side of him
marvel on marvel of which even China is ignorant. Then as he neared
the city's further rampart by which no inhabitant stirred, and looked
in a direction to which no houses faced with any rose-pink windows, he
suddenly saw far-off, dwarfing the mountains, an even greater city.
Whether that city was built upon the twilight or whether it rose from
the coasts of some other world he did not know. He saw it dominate the
City of Never, and strove to reach it; but at this unmeasured home of
unknown colossi the hippogriff shied frantically, and neither the
magic halter nor anything that he did could make the monster face it.
At last, from the City of Never's lonely outskirts where no
inhabitants walked, the rider turned slowly earthward. He knew now why
all the windows faced this way--the denizens of the twilight gazed at
the world and not at a greater than them. Then from the last step of
the earthward stairway, like lead past the Under Pits and down the
glittering face of Toldenarba, down from the overshadowed glories of
the gold-tipped City of Never and out of perpetual twilight, swooped
the man on his winged monster: the wind that slept at the time leaped
up like a dog at their onrush, it uttered a cry and ran past them.
Down on the World it was morning; night was roaming away with his
cloak trailed behind him, white mists turned over and over as he went,
the orb was grey but it glittered, lights blinked surprisingly in
early windows, forth over wet, dim fields went cows from their houses:
even in this hour touched the fields again the feet of the hippogriff.
And the moment that the man dismounted and took off his magic halter
the hippogriff flew slanting away with a whirr, going back to some
airy dancing-place of his people.
And he that surmounted glittering Toldenarba and came alone of men to
the City of Never has his name and his fame among nations; but he and
the people of that twilit city well know two things unguessed by other
men, they that there is another city fairer than theirs, and he--a
deed unaccomplished.
THE CORONATION OF MR. THOMAS SHAP
It was the occupation of Mr. Thomas Shap to persuade customers tha
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