"Did either of you notice," she said, "that there were so many of these white spider webs about-before we saw that woman?"
Her brother and Drayton merely stared stupidly, heavy-eyed.
"Before we met the White Weaver," murmured the girl dreamily, "there was only a web here and there, woven between the grass stems. Now it is like-like walking through a silver sea. And the moon. What moon of earth was ever like this of Ulithia?"
"If it is a moon," said Trenmore with no great interest. "She's taking an uncommon long time for her rising."
Blank as a silver shield, the moon, or what they had believed a moon, still rested at the edge of the plain, its lower part bisected by the horizon. More like an enormous archway than a moon it seemed-a sort of celestial door, perhaps, in the edge of the sky.
They neared and neared, walking across a silver sea of web through which the invisible flowers sent up their perpetually increasing incense, almost too sweet now for pleasure. More and more like an arch the moon appeared-an immense, light-filled archway, of the nearly circular Moorish type. About it they began to perceive a certain dim outline of dark substance, behind which the moon itself was just a depth and a blinding expanse of light. Almost unconsciously they hastened their steps. At last, heads swimming with the fragrance of the plain, they had actually reached the splendid thing.
High, high above them curved the perfect arch of stone, black as unpolished ebony and set in what seemed a solid wall of similar rock stretching away to darkness on either hand. Through the opening they could not see, for it was filled with a brilliant mist of pure white light.
"Look!" said Drayton, leaning dizzily against the black stone to which he pointed. "Here on the architrave. There are silver characters-inlaid-aren't they? But they move and writhe like white flame-"
Closing his eyes against the glare, he wished that a great wind might arise-a great, clean wind that would sweep away cobwebs and flowers together.
"Go forward, go deeper, go forward!" murmured a sweet, clear voice. To Drayton it seemed to be Viola's, though with a distant sound, like a far-off silver bell. "Your feet are in the web!" cried the voice. "In the Web of the Weaver of Years. And why linger in the shallows of Ulithia? Go forward-go deeper!"