I was doing the wildest, maddest thing, but so far all had gone well. I was, as it were, a solitary swimmer in deep and dangerous waters, on the threshold of experiences which I knew instinctively would transcend all those of ordinary life. I was perfectly certain, something in my inmost soul told me, that I was about to step into unknown perils, and to contend with bizarre and sinister forces of which I had no means of measuring the power or extent.
I don't mind admitting that on that first night in the "Golden Swan," fate weighed heavily on me and I thought I heard the muffled laughter of malignant things.
However, I was in for it now. I finished my cigar, went into the bar and selected a certain bottle of whisky—the excellent Stanley had warned me that this was the landlord's bottle and of a much more reputable quality than that served to the landlord's guests. After a very moderate "nightcap" I put on carpet slippers and went up to my room, which I had chosen at the very top of the house. It was a large attic, just under the roof, and in a few days I proposed to make it more habitable with some new furniture and decoration. Meanwhile, I had chosen it because, in one corner, some wooden steps went up to a trap-door which opened on to the roof, where there was a flat space of some three yards square among the chimneys. Just before going up to bed I turned up the collar of my dressing-gown, ascended the ladder, pushed open the trap-door and stepped out on to the leads.
It was a still, moonlight night. Looking over the roofs of the houses I could see the Thames winding like a silver ribbon far down below, a scene of utter tranquillity and peace.
Then I wheeled round to be confronted with the great black wall which rose several yards above me, within a pistol shot of distance.
But my eye traveled up beyond that and was caught in a colossal network of steel, so bold, towering and gigantic in its nearness that it almost made me reel. I stared up among the dark shadows and moonlit spaces till my eye reached an altitude which I knew to be about the height of the Golden Ball on the top of Saint Paul's Cathedral.
There the vision checked. I could see a blur of low buildings, a web of latticed galleries, and I knew that I was looking only up at the very first stage of the City in the Clouds, which must be lying bare to the moon some sixteen hundred feet above.
I could see no more. The first stage barred all further vision, though that in itself seemed terrible in its height and majesty. So I closed my eyes and imagined only those supreme heights where she must be sleeping.
"Good-night, Juanita," I murmured, and then, as I descended into my room the words of the Psalmist came to me and I said, "Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!"