What is to be done? On… on…!
And again the harps cry out and a great rattling flies forth and returns as thunder. And again a great cleft opens its brilliant hues at my side. On, on … to seek her smiling, even though the smile is not for me. It will be for me if only I can grasp the hem of her garment.
A third cleft opens; a fourth crosses it, uniting it to the first.
I must cross. But I dare not jump, for the ice must not crumble lest an abysm open at my feet.
It is no longer a sheet of ice upon which I travel—it is a net-work of clefts. Between them lies something blue and all but invisible that bears me by the merest chance. I can see the tangled water grasses wind about and the polished fishes dart whom my body will feed unless a miracle happens.
Lit by the gathering afterglow a plain of fire stretches out before me, and far on the horizon the saving shore looms dark.
Farther … farther!
Sinister and deceptive springs arise to my right and left and hurl their waters across my path…. A soft gurgling is heard and at last drowns the resonant sound of thunder.
Farther, farther…. Mere life is at stake.
There in the distance a cloud dislimns which but now lured me to death with its girlish smile. What do I care now?