of white mist-angels.  Softly they slide, swift and yet motionless, as if by some inner will, which needs no force of limbs; gliding gently round the crags, diving gently off into the abyss, their long white robes trailing about their feet in upward-floating folds.  “Let us go hence,” they seem to whisper to the God-forsaken, as legends say they whispered, when they left their doomed shrine in old Jerusalem.  Let the white fringe fall between him and the last of that fair troop; let the grey curtain follow, the black pall above descend; till he is alone in darkness that may be felt, and in the shadow of death.

Now he is safe at last; hidden from all living things—­hidden it may be, from God; for at least God is hidden from him.  He has desired to be alone:  and he is alone; the centre of the universe, if universe there be.  All created things, suns and planets, seem to revolve round him, and he a point of darkness, not of light.  He seems to float self-poised in the centre of the boundless nothing, upon an ell-broad slab of stone—­ and yet not even on that:  for the very ground on which he stands he does not feel.  He does not feel the mist which wets his cheek, the blood which throbs within his veins.  He only is; and there is none beside.

Horrible thought!  Permitted but to few, and to them—­thank God!—­but rarely.  For two minutes of that absolute self-isolation would bring madness; if, indeed, it be not the very essence of madness itself.

There he stood; he knew not how long; without motion, without thought, without even rage or hate, now—­in one blank paralysis of his whole nature; conscious only of self, and of a dull, inward fire, as if his soul were a dark vault, lighted with lurid smoke.

* * * * *

What was that?  He started:  shuddered—­as well he might.  Had he seen heaven opened? or another place?  So momentary was the vision, that he scarce knew what he saw.  There it was again!  Lasting but for a moment:  but long enough to let him see the whole western heaven transfigured into one sheet of pale blue gauze, and before it Snowdon towering black as ink, with every saw and crest cut out, hard and terrible, against the lightning-glare:—­and then the blank of darkness.

Again!  The awful black giant, towering high in air, before the gates of that blue abyss of flame:  but a black crown of cloud has settled upon his head; and out of it the lightning sparks leap to and fro, ringing his brows with a coronet of fire.

Another moment, and the roar of that great battle between earth and heaven crashed full on Elsley’s ears.

He heard it leap from Snowdon, sharp and rattling, across the gulf toward him, till it crashed full upon the Glyder overhead, and rolled and flapped from crag to crag, and died away along the dreary downs.  No!  There it boomed out again, thundering full against Siabod on the left; and Siabod tossed it on to Moel Meirch, who answered from all her clefts and peaks with a long confused battle-growl, and then tossed it across to Aran; and Aran, with one dull, bluff report from her flat cliff, to nearer Lliwedd; till, worn out with the long bufferings of that giant ring, it sank and died on Gwynnant far below—­but ere it died, another and another thunder-crash burst, sharper and nearer every time, to hurry round the hills after the one which roared before it.