Corpang, without delay, led the way along the shelf to the left.  When they had walked about a mile, the gulf widened to two hundred feet.  Three large rocks loomed up on the ledge opposite; they resembled three upright giants, standing motionless side by side on the extreme edge of the chasm.  Corpang and Maskull drew nearer, and then Maskull saw that they were statues.  Each was about thirty feet high, and the workmanship was of the rudest.  They represented naked men, but the limbs and trunks had been barely chipped into shape—­ the faces alone had had care bestowed on them, and even these faces were merely generalised.  It was obviously the work of primitive artists.  The statues stood erect with knees closed and arms hanging straight down their sides.  All three were exactly alike.

As soon as they were directly opposite, Corpang halted.

“Is this a representation of your three Beings?” asked Maskull, awed by the spectacle in spite of his constitutional audacity.

“Ask no questions, but kneel,” replied Corpang.  He dropped onto his own knees, but Maskull remained standing.

Corpang covered his eyes with one hand, and prayed silently.  After a few minutes the light sensibly faded.  Then Maskull knelt as well, but he continued looking.

It grew darker and darker, until all was like the blackest night.  Sight and sound no longer existed; he was alone with his own spirit.

Then one of the three Colossi came slowly into sight again.  But it had ceased to be a statue—­it was a living person.  Out of the blackness of space a gigantic head and chest emerged, illuminated by a mystic, rosy glow, like a mountain peak bathed by the rising sun.  As the light grew stronger Maskull saw that the flesh was translucent and that the glow came from within.  The limbs of the apparition were wreathed in mist.

Before long the features of the face stood out distinctly.  It was that of a beardless youth of twenty years.  It possessed the beauty of a girl and the daring force of a man; it bore a mocking, cryptic smile.  Maskull felt the fresh, mysterious thrill of mingled pain and rapture of one who awakes from a deep sleep in midwinter and sees the gleaming, dark, delicate colours of the half-dawn.  The vision smiled, kept still, and looked beyond him.  He began to shudder, with delight—­and many emotions.  As he gazed, his poetic sensibility acquired such a nervous and indefinable character that he could endure it no more; he burst into tears.

When he looked up again the image had nearly disappeared, and in a few moments more he was plunged back into total darkness.