We
were shadows--and yet we had substance; we were incorporated with, a
part of, the rock--and yet we were living flesh and blood; we
stretched--nor will I qualify this--we _stretched_ through mile upon
mile of space that weirdly enough gave at one and the same time an
absolute certainty of immense horizontal lengths and a vertical
concentration that contained nothing of length, nothing of space
whatever; we stood _there_ upon the face of the stone--and still we
were _here_ within the faceted oval before the screen of radiance!
"Steady!" It was Lakla's voice--and not beside me _there_, but at my ear
close before the screen. "Steady, Goodwin! And--see!"
The sparkling haze cleared. Enormous reaches stretched before me.
Shimmering up through them, and as though growing in some medium
thicker than air, was mass upon mass of verdure--fruiting trees and
trees laden with pale blossoms, arbours and bowers of pallid blooms,
like that sea fruit of oblivion--grapes of Lethe--that cling to the
tide-swept walls of the caverns of the Hebrides.
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