rt."

In order to take off his boots the Philosopher had to stand up, for in
the cart they were too cramped for freedom. He moved backwards a space
from the fire and took off his boots. He could see the woman stretching
sacks and clothes inside the cart, and the two men smoking quietly and
handing the big bottle from one to the other. Then in his stockinged
feet he stepped a little farther from the fire, and, after another look,
he turned and walked quietly away into the blackness. In a few minutes
he heard a shout from behind him, and then a number of shouts and then
these died away into a plaintive murmur of voices, and next he was alone
in the greatest darkness he had ever known.

He put on his boots and walked onwards. He had no idea where the road
lay, and every moment he stumbled into a patch of heather or prickly
furze. The ground was very uneven with unexpected mounds and deep
hollows: here and there were water-soaked, soggy places, and into these
cold ruins he sank ankle deep. There was no longer an earth or a sky,
but only a black void and a thin wind and a fierce silence which seemed
to listen to him as he went. Out of that silence a thundering laugh
might boom at an instant and stop again while he stood appalled in the
blind vacancy.

The hill began to grow more steep and rocks were lying everywhere in his
path. He could not see an inch in front, and so he went with his hands
out-stretched like a blind man who stumbles painfully along. After a
time he was nearly worn out with cold and weariness, but he dared not
sit down anywhere; the darkness was so intense that it frightened him,
and the overwhelming, crafty silence frightened him also.

At last, and at a great distance, he saw a flickering, waving light, and
he went towards this through drifts of heather, and over piled rocks and
sodden bogland. When he came to the light he saw it was a torch of thick
branches, the flame whereof blew hither and thither on the wind. The
torch was fastened against a great cliff of granite by an iron band. At
one side there was a dark opening in the rock, so he said: "I will go
in there and sleep until the morning comes," and he went in. At a very
short distance the cleft turned again to the right, and here there was
another torch fixed. When he turned this corner he stood for an instant
in speechless astonishment, and then he covered his face and bowed down
upon the ground.

BOOK III. THE TWO GODS

CHAPTER