It did not matter. He would go on down towards the stream. This friendly mist would hide him.
It was wonderful to be in this white mist and yet not in it. It was always a little way from him. And nevertheless it wetted him. How crisp the frosted ground was, but if one kicked through the surface, it was soft.
Overhead the blueness increased and there was now a rippled patch of pink cloud.
He went deeper and deeper into the soft mist. Presently he was walking on long wet shrivelled grass. When he turned presently to look back at the asylum it had altogether disappeared.
What was that? Was it something talking or was it the beating heart of some busy elfin machine? Listen! Peer! Think!
It was the stream.
Now everything was plain and easy.
He walked beside the stream. Near at hand trees became visible, attendant trees with mist about their waists, white-clad sentinel trees. The dry grass was ranker here. And what was this, like a denser lower mist within the mist? This was the wall. Beyond that wall, almost within shouting distance now, the friends and believers would be waiting. How discreet they were! Not a murmur, not a footfall.
For a long time Sargon stood motionless beside the culvert beneath the wall. At last he roused himself and by a great effort and with the help of the ivy he scrambled to the top of the wall.
No one waited. Some dim four-footed thing bolted from the frost-bitten weeds below, and then there was silence. There was no sign of watchers nor helpers.