much more so when I saw the whole posse of people,
that as I have just said were marching towards the bridge, coming over
it to my side of the lake. At this my heart failed, and I was just going
to run to my grotto for shelter; but taking one look more, I plainly
discovered that the people, leaping one after another from the top of
the bridge, as if into the water, and then rising again, flew in a
long train over the lake, the lengthways of it, quite out of my sight,
laughing, hallooing, and sporting together; so that looking back again
to the bridge and on the lake, I could neither see person nor boat,
nor anything else, nor hear the least noise or stir afterwards for that
time.

I returned to my grotto brimful of this amazing adventure, bemoaning my
misfortune in being at a place where I was like to remain ignorant of
what was doing about me. For, says I, if I am in a land of spirits, as
now I have little room to doubt, there is no guarding against them. I am
never safe, even in my grotto; for that can be no security against such
beings as can sail on the water in no boats, and fly in the air on no
wings, as the case now appears to me, who can be here and there and
wherever they please. What a miserable state, I say, am I fallen to!
I should have been glad to have had human converse, and to have found
inhabitants in this place; but there being none, as I supposed hitherto,
I contented myself with thinking that I was at least safe from all those
evils mankind in society are obnoxious to. But now, what may be the
consequence of the next hour I know not; nay, I am not able to say but
whilst I speak, and show my discontent, they may at a distance conceive
my thoughts, and be hatching revenge against me for my dislike of them.

The pressure of my spirits inclining me to repose, I laid me down, but
could get no rest; nor could all my most serious thoughts, even of the
Almighty Providence, give me relief under my present anxiety: and all
this was only from my state of uncertainty concerning the reality of
what I had heard and seen, and from the earnestness with which I coveted
a satisfactory knowledge of those beings who had just taken their flight
from me.

I really believe the fiercest wild beast, or the most savage of mankind
that had met me, and put me upon my defence, would not have given me
half the trouble that then lay upon me; and the more, for that I had no
seeming possibility of ever being rid of my apprehensio