uided, guarded by the spirits of dead suns, with odours
and with chantings, descended that crowned City of the Mansions before
whose glory imagination breaks and even Vision veils her eyes.

It descended, its banners wavering in the winds of prayer; it hung above
the Gates, the flowers of all splendours, Heaven's very rose, hung like
an opal on the boundless breast of night, and there it stayed.

The Voice in the North called to the Voice in the South; the Voice in
the East called to the Voice in the West, and up the Great White Road
sped the Angel of the Road, making report as he came that all his
multitude were gathered in and for that while the Road was barred.

He passed and in a flash the Gates were burned away. The ashes of them
fell upon the heads of those waiting at the Gates, whitening their faces
and drying their tears before the Change. They fell upon the Man and the
Hare beside me, veiling them as it were and making them silent, but
on me they did not fall. Then, from between the Wardens of the Gates,
flowed forth the Helpers and the Guardians (save those who already were
without comforting the children) seeking their beloved and bearing the
Cups of slumber and new birth; then pealed the question--

"Who hath suffered most? Let that one first taste of peace."

Now all the dim hosts surged forward since each outworn soul believed
that it had suffered most and was in the bitterest need of peace. But
the Helpers and the Guardians gently pressed them back, and again there
pealed, no question but a command.

This was the command:--

"Draw near, thou Hare."

*****

Jorsen asked me what happened after this justification of the Hare,
which, if I heard aright, appeared to suggest that by the decree of some
judge unknown, the woes of such creatures are not unnoted and despised,
or left unsolaced. Of course I had to answer him that I could not tell.

Perhaps nothing happened at all. Perhaps all the wonders I seemed to
see, even the Road by which souls travel from There to Here and from
Here to There, and the Gates that were burned away, and the City of the
Mansions that descended, were but signs and symbols of mysteries which
as yet we cannot grasp or understand.

Whatever may be the truth as to this matter of my visions, I need hardly
add, however, that no one can be more anxious than I am myself to learn
in what way the Red-faced Man, speaking on behalf of our dominant race,
and the Hare, speaking as an a