So upward and upward ever, driven on by the terrible gad-fly, like Io of old he went; stumbling upwards along torrent beds of slippery slate, writhing himself upward through crannies where the waterfall splashed cold upon his chest and face, yet could not cool the inward fire; climbing, hand and knee, up cliffs of sharp-edged rock; striding over downs where huge rocks lay crouched in the grass, like fossil monsters of some ancient world, and seemed to stare at him with still and angry brows.  Upward still, to black terraces of lava, standing out hard and black against the grey cloud, gleaming like iron in the moonlight, stair above stair, like those over which Vathek and the Princess climbed up to the halls of Eblis.  Over their crumbling steps, up through their cracks and crannies, out upon a dreary slope of broken stones, and then,—­ before he dives upward into the cloud ten yards above his head,—­one breathless look back upon the world.

The horizontal curtain of mist; gauzy below, fringed with white tufts and streamers, deepening above into the blackness of utter night.  Below it a long gulf of soft yellow haze in which, as in a bath of gold, lie delicate bars of far-off western cloud; and the faint glimmer of the western sea, above long knotted spurs of hill, in deepest shades, like a bunch of purple grapes flecked here and there from behind with gleams of golden light; and beneath them again, the dark woods sleeping over Gwynnant, and their dark double sleeping in the bright lake below.

On the right hand Snowdon rises.  Vast sheets of utter blackness—­vast sheets of shining light.  He can see every crag which juts from the green walls of Galt-y-Wennalt; and far past it into the Great Valley of Cwn Dyli; and then the red peak, now as black as night, shuts out the world with its huge mist-topped cone.  But on the left hand all is deepest shade.  From the highest saw-edges, where Moel Meirch cuts the golden sky, down to the very depth of the abyss, all is lustrous darkness, sooty, and yet golden still.  Let the darkness lie upon it for ever!  Hidden be those woods where she stood an hour ago!  Hidden that road down which, even now, they may be pacing home together!—­Curse the thought!  He covers his face in his hands, and shudders in every limb.

He lifts his hands from his eyes at last:—­what has befallen?

Before the golden haze a white veil is falling fast.  Sea, mountain, lake, are vanishing, fading as in a dream.  Soon he can see nothing, but the twinkle of a light in Pen-y-gwryd, a thousand feet below; happy children are nestling there in innocent sleep.  Jovial voices are chatting round the fire.  What has he to do with youth, and health, and joy?  Lower, lower, ye clouds!—­Shut out that insolent and intruding spark, till nothing be seen but the silver sheet of Cwm Fynnon, and the silver zig-zag lines which wander into it among black morass, while down the mountain side go, softly sliding, troops