"You may as well say I have seen the moon, but never been there."
Cyrus laughed, quite a hearty little laugh, as if thoroughly amused. "Well I do say it. And it's true, isn't it?"
"Yes, but it has no relation to the argument."
"Why not? I am merely proving my statement, that you have seen interesting places which you have never visited. Either Trinity spire or the moon might hold this diamond."
"But Trinity spire does not fit your description of the country."
Again Cyrus seemed amused. "But the moon fits it."
William laughed. "Well, Cyrus, you are just the same boy in an argument that you were at school. And how mad I used to get! But this mysterious land that you are concealing so successfully, the land we have all seen but never touched—or even heard about, apparently—must be a God-forsaken district. Is it a desert—like Sahara, for instance?"
"No, quite different. This is rock, with plains of lava from volcanic mountains and everywhere, in all directions, dust and ashes: the dried bones of its own past—whatever it was. The whole surface of the country seems upheaved and torn, all on a gigantic scale, as if it was baked too much, then split and sundered in the cooling. A fantastic, solemn region."
"Well, by Jove!" said William, at last, "I still maintain that I have never seen the place—nor anything like it."
"I said from a distance."