’I am the servant of the Lord the God of my people and I go to do his work on Babbulkund.  She is the most beautiful city in the world; there hath been none like her, even the stars of God go envious of her beauty.  She is all white, yet with streaks of pink that pass through her streets and houses like flames in the white mind of a sculptor, like desire in Paradise.  She hath been carved of old out of a holy hill, no slaves wrought the City of Marvel, but artists toiling at the work they loved.  They took no pattern from the houses of men, but each man wrought what his inner eye had seen and carved in marble the visions of his dream.  All over the roof of one of the palace chambers winged lions flit like bats, the size of every one is the size of the lions of God, and the wings are larger than any wing created; they are one above the other more than a man can number, they are all carven out of one block of marble, the chamber itself is hollowed from it, and it is borne aloft upon the carven branches of a grove of clustered tree-ferns wrought by the hand of some jungle mason that loved the tall fern well.  Over the River of Myth, which is one with the Waters of Fable, go bridges, fashioned like the wisteria tree and like the drooping laburnum, and a hundred others of wonderful devices, the desire of the souls of masons a long while dead.  Oh! very beautiful is white Babbulkund, very beautiful she is, but proud; and the Lord the God of my people hath seen her in her pride, and looking towards her hath seen the prayers of Nehemoth going up to the abomination Annolith, and all the people following after Voth.  She is very beautiful, Babbulkund; alas that I may not bless her.  I could live always on one of her inner terraces looking on the mysterious jungle in her midst and the heavenward faces of the orchids that, clambering from the darkness, behold the sun.  I could love Babbulkund with a great love, yet am I the servant of the Lord the God of my people, and the King hath sinned unto the abomination Annolith, and the people lust exceedingly for Voth.  Alas for thee, Babbulkund, alas that I may not even now turn back, for to-morrow I must prophesy against thee and cry out against thee, Babbulkund.  But ye travellers that have entreated me hospitably, rise and pass on with your camels, for I can tarry no longer, and I go to do the work on Babbulkund of the Lord the God of my people.  Go now and see the beauty of Babbulkund before I cry out against her, and then flee swiftly northwards.’

A smouldering fragment fell in upon our camp fire and sent a strange light into the eyes of the man in rags.  He rose at once, and his tattered cloak swirled up with him like a great wing; he said no more, but turned round from us instantly southwards, and strode away into the darkness towards Babbulkund.  Then a hush fell upon our encampment, and the smell of the tobacco of those lands arose.  When the last flame died down in our camp fire I fell asleep, but my rest was troubled by shifting dreams of doom.