One after another the shadowy, houselike trees were observed, avoided, and passed.  Far overhead the little patch of glowing sky was still always visible; otherwise he had no clue to the time of day.  He continued tramping sullenly down the slope for many damp, slippery miles—­in some places through bogs.  When, presently, the twilight seemed to thin, he guessed that the open world was not far away.  The forest grew more palpable and grey, and now he saw its majesty better.  The tree trunks were like round towers, and so wide were the intervals that they resembled natural amphitheatres.  He could not make out the colour of the bark.  Everything he saw amazed him, but his admiration was of the growling, grudging kind.  The difference in light between the forest behind him and the forest ahead became so marked that he could no longer doubt that he was on the point of coming out.

Real light was in front of him; looking back, he found he had a shadow.  The trunks acquired a reddish tint.  He quickened his pace.  As the minutes went by, the bright patch ahead grew luminous and vivid; it had a tinge of blue.  He also imagined that he heard the sound of surf.

All that part of the forest toward which he was moving became rich with colour.  The boles of the trees were of a deep, dark red; their leaves, high above his head, were ulfire-hued; the dead leaves on the ground were of a colour he could not name.  At the same time he discovered the use of his third eye.  By adding a third angle to his sight, every object he looked at stood out in greater relief.  The world looked less flat—­more realistic and significant.  He had a stronger attraction toward his surroundings; he seemed somehow to lose his egotism, and to become free and thoughtful.

Now through the last trees he saw full daylight.  Less than half a mile separated him from the border of the forest, and, eager to discover what lay beyond, he broke into a run.  He heard the surf louder.  It was a peculiar hissing sound that could proceed only from water, yet was unlike the sea.  Almost immediately he came within sight of an enormous horizon of dancing waves, which he knew must be the Sinking Sea.  He fell back into a quick walk, continuing to stare hard.  The wind that met him was hot, fresh and sweet.

When he arrived at the final fringe of forest, which joined the wide sands of the shore without any change of level, he leaned with his back to a great tree and gazed his fill, motionless, at what lay in front of him.  The sands continued east and west in a straight line, broken only here and there by a few creeks.  They were of a brilliant orange colour, but there were patches of violet.  The forest appeared to stand sentinel over the shore for its entire length.  Everything else was sea and sky—­he had never seen so much water.  The semicircle of the skyline was so vast that he might have imagined himself on a flat world, with a range of vision determined