e who have fallen therein have ever returned. But the wind is
rising, and this mist will speedily be lifted."

While he was yet speaking a great draught of air drove the mist before
it, and shifted and lifted it, and rolled it like carded wool, and in
front all was clear, but the light was of an iron-grey transparency,
and Rheinfrid saw into the depths of the chasm into which he had
well-nigh fallen.

Far down below lay the jagged ridges and ghastly abysses of a gigantic
crater, the black walls of which were so steep that it was impossible
to climb them. Smoke and steam rose in incessant puffs from the
innermost pit of the crater and trailed along the floor and about the
rocky spikes and jagged ridges.

Then, as Rheinfrid gazed, his face grew pale, and he turned to the
stranger.

"What are these," he asked, "men, or little statues of men, or
strangely shaped rocks?"

"They are living men and women," said the stranger.

"They seem as small as images," said Rheinfrid.

"They are very far distant from us," replied the stranger, "although we
see them so clearly."

"There seem to be hundreds of them standing in crowds," said Rheinfrid.

"There are thousands and hundreds of thousands," said the stranger.

"And they do not move; they are motionless as stone; they do not even
seem to breathe."

"They are waiting," said the stranger.

"Their faces are all turned upward; they are all staring in one way."

"They are watching," said the stranger.

"Why are they watching?" asked Rheinfrid; then looking up into the
iron-grey air in the same direction as the faces of the people in the
crater; "What huge ball is that hanging in the sky above them?"

"It is a globe of polished stone--the stone adamant, which of all
stones is the hardest."

"Why do they gaze at it so steadfastly?"

"Not hard to say," replied the stranger. "Every hundred years a little
blue bird passes by, flying between them and the globe, and as it
passes it touches the stone with the tip of its wing. On the last day
of the hundredth year the people gather and watch with eager eyes all
day for the passing of the bird, and while they watch they do not
suffer. Now this is the last hour of the last day of the hundredth
year, and you see how they gaze."

"But why do they watch to see the bird?"

"Each time the bird passes it touches the stone, and every hundred
years it will thus touch it, till the stone be utterly worn away."

"Ten thousand a