So we set our teeth and sped away like arrows while the
light lasted.
Very soon it failed, and whilst the moon was hidden behind the mountains
the night grew dark.
Now the hounds gained on us, for in the gloom, which to them was
nothing, we did not dare to ride full speed, fearing lest our horses
should stumble and lame themselves, or fall. Then it was for the second
time since we had dwelt in this land of Kaloon that of a sudden the fire
flamed upon the Peak. When we had seen it before, it had appeared to
flash across the heavens in one great lighthouse ray, concentrated
through the loop above the pillar, and there this night also the ray ran
far above us like a lance of fire. But now that we were nearer to its
fount we found ourselves bathed in a soft, mysterious radiance like that
of the phosphorescence on a summer sea, reflected downwards perhaps from
the clouds and massy rock roof of the column loop and diffused by the
snows beneath.
This unearthly glimmer, faint as it was, helped us much, indeed but for
it we must have been overtaken, for here the ground was very rough, full
of holes also made by burrowing marmots. Thus in our extremity help did
come to us from the Mountain, until at length the moon rose, when as
quickly as they had appeared the volcanic fires vanished, leaving behind
them nothing but the accustomed pillar of dull red smoke.
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