When we halted our shadows still pointed
toward nadir. Whether an instant or an eternity of earthly time
elapsed who may say. That march may have occupied nine years and
eleven months of the ten years that I spent in the inner world,
or it may have been accomplished in the fraction of a second--I
cannot tell. But this I do know that since you have told me that
ten years have elapsed since I departed from this earth I have lost
all respect for time--I am commencing to doubt that such a thing
exists other than in the weak, finite mind of man.
IV
DIAN THE BEAUTIFUL
WHEN OUR GUARDS AROUSED US FROM SLEEP WE were much refreshed. They
gave us food. Strips of dried meat it was, but it put new life and
strength into us, so that now we too marched with high-held heads,
and took noble strides. At least I did, for I was young and proud;
but poor Perry hated walking. On earth I had often seen him call
a cab to travel a square--he was paying for it now, and his old
legs wobbled so that I put my arm about him and half carried him
through the balance of those frightful marches.
The country began to change at last, and we wound up out of the
level plain through mighty mountains of virgin granite. The tropical
verdure of the lowlands was replaced by hardier vegetation, but
even here the effects of constant heat and light were apparent in
the immensity of the trees and the profusion of foliage and blooms.
Crystal streams roared through their rocky channels, fed by the
perpetual snows which we could see far above us.
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