Suddenly I came out of heavy sleep with a start. We
ran before it,and it was like the swee-gee we used to play at when we
wereladdies.
Often I argued it out with him, but I did not seem
able to comforthim rightly. I think I must have slept for a couple of hours. That
stood at the west end on a pediment with three steps. When I came to it was morning,
and the storm had abated.
Butthere is one living to-day somewhere in
Scotland. There was far more real power, someone argued, in the profession
ofprophet.
But he confessed himself absolutely
beaten.
The news pleased me, for bedwas the best place for
him.
I foundmyself looking suddenly at a bath of
sunshine with the lake belowas blue as a turquoise. Iused to visit his dingy little
room and find him fairly grizzledand shrunken with fatigue. Its no aquestion of my
bowing in the house of Rimmon.
ForI knew something about the islands, of which I
supposed this to beone.
If you understand a mans work well enoughyou can
guess pretty accurately what hell look like. It wasunbelievably light and airy, as
brilliant as an Italian colonnadein midsummer. When I drew in my head I felt that if
I was to get any sleepsomething must be done.
Here there were nearly three thousand heathens
sitting ontheir hunkers.
A manJohnston, who used to bide in the same close
as me in Glasgow.
This isnt a story about him, though there is a good
story which Imay tell you another time.
I wont leave you, but what earthly good am I to you
if you wonttake my advice? We ran before it,and it was like the swee-gee we used to
play at when we wereladdies.
Land will swallow up money quicker than
thesea.
Its about his political career, as he calls it. A
cypher, since it dealswith numbers, is a horrible field for mathematical ingenuity.
Iwanted to get out, and Dubellay wanted to get me out.
Christoph had a modest kurhaus at a placecalled
Rosensee in the Sächischen Sweitz. Idid it, at the cost of much of my raiment and my
skin.
Were in the twentieth centuryand not in the third.
It is not easy to describe my impressions of that place.
There he was captured by the savages, and
taken,like me, to their city. There was no bell to be found, so I lit mycandle and
set out to find a servant.
It had once beencoloured, and fragments of a green
pigment remained in the locks. And yet I had scarcely entered before I knew that it
was a prison.
It came again, a horrid scream of panic
andtorture.
I fancy any of the recognised ritual stuffwould do.