ure? No; you have tried to escape from this thing, and the very
thing you point to as the goal of your escape is only the thing again.
Am I wrong in saying that these things seem to be eternal?"

And it was with these words that they came in sight of the great
plains. They went a little way in silence, and then James Turnbull said
suddenly, "But I _cannot_ believe in the thing." MacIan answered nothing
to the speech; perhaps it is unanswerable. And indeed they scarcely
spoke another word to each other all that day.

IX. THE STRANGE LADY

Moonrise with a great and growing moon opened over all those flats,
making them seem flatter and larger than they were, turning them to a
lake of blue light. The two companions trudged across the moonlit plain
for half an hour in full silence. Then MacIan stopped suddenly and
planted his sword-point in the ground like one who plants his tent-pole
for the night. Leaving it standing there, he clutched his black-haired
skull with his great claws of hands, as was his custom when forcing the
pace of his brain. Then his hands dropped again and he spoke.

"I'm sure you're thinking the same as I am," he said; "how long are we
to be on this damned seesaw?"

The other did not answer, but his silence seemed somehow solid as
assent; and MacIan went on conversationally. Neither noticed that both
had instinctively stood still before the sign of the fixed and standing
sword.

"It is hard to guess what God means in this business. But he means
something--or the other thing, or both. Whenever we have tried to
fight each other something has stopped us. Whenever we have tried to be
reconciled to each other, something has stopped us again. By the run
of our luck we have never had time to be either friends or enemies.
Something always jumped out of the bushes."

Turnbull nodded gravely and glanced round at the huge and hedgeless
meadow which fell away towards the horizon into a glimmering high road.

"Nothing will jump out of bushes here anyhow," he said.

"That is what I meant," said MacIan, and stared steadily at the heavy
hilt of his standing sword, which in the slight wind swayed on its
tempered steel like some huge thistle on its stalk.

"That is what I meant; we are quite alone here. I have not heard a
horse-hoof or a footstep or the hoot of a train for miles. So I think we
might stop here and ask for a miracle."

"Oh! might we?" said the atheistic editor with a sort of gusto of
disg