ghts and olden memories, and
fresh-breaking wonders; neither forgetting something of doubts and fears
more than a little. And again was it most cunning strange to be out
there in the Night Land--though not yet afar--where often had my fancies
and imaginings led me; yet until that time never had I touched foot, in
all that life, upon the outward earth. And this must be a wondrous
quaint seeming thought to those of this present day.

And so came I, at last, nigh to the Circle that did go about the
Redoubt; and presently I was come to it; and something astonished was I
that it had no great bigness; for I had looked for this by _reasoning_;
having always a mind to picture things as they might be truly, and hence
coming sometimes to the wonder of a great truth; but odd whiles to
errors that others had not made. And now, lo! I did find it but a small,
clear tube that had not two inches of thickness; yet sent out a very
bright and strong light, so that it seemed greater to the eye, did one
but behold from a distance.

And this is but a little thing to set to the telling; yet may it give
something of the newness of all; and, moreover, shall you have memory
with me in this place, how that oft had I seen Things and Beast-Monsters
peer over that same little tube of light, their faces coming forward out
of the night.

And this had I seen as child and man; for as children, we did use to
keep oft a watch by hours upon an holiday-time, through the great
glasses of the embrasures. And we did always hope each to be that one
that should first discover a monster looking inwards upon the Mighty
Pyramid, across the shining of the Circle. And these to come oft; yet
presently to slink away into the night; having, in verity, no liking for
that light.

And pride had we taken of ourselves to perceive those monsters which had
most of ugliness and horror to commend them; for, thereby did we stand
to have won the game of watching, until such time as a more fearsome
Brute be discovered. And so went the play; yet with ever, it doth seem
to me now, something of a half-known shudder to the heart, and a child's
rejoicing unknowingly in that safety which had power to make light the
seeming of such matters.

And this, also, is but a small matter; yet doth it bear upon the
inwardness of my feelings; for the memories of all my youth and of the
many Beasts that I had seen to peer across the Light, did come upwards
in my mind in that moment; so that I d