for the Sleep-Time was set thus, after other usage and experiment. And,
odd whiles, I found that there were among them, men of extraordinary
learning who upheld my tellings as tales of verity; and so there was a
faction; but, later, there grew more to believe; and whether they
believed, or not, all were ready to listen; so that I might have spended
my days in talk; only that I had my work to do.

But the Master Monstruwacan believed from the beginning, and was wise
always to understand; so that I loved him for this, as for many another
dear quality.

And so, as may be conceived, among all those millions I was singled out
to be known; for the stories that I told went downward through a
thousand cities; and, presently, in the lowest tier of the Underground
Fields, an hundred miles deep in the earth below the Redoubt, I found
that the very ploughboys knew something concerning my tellings; and
gathered about me one time and another when the Master Monstruwacan and
I had gone down, regarding some matter that dealt with the Earth-Current
and our Instruments.

And of the Underground Fields (though in that age we called them no more
than "The Fields") I should set down a little; for they were the
mightiest work of this world; so that even the Last Redoubt was but a
small thing beside them. An hundred miles deep lay the lowest of the
Underground Fields, and was an hundred miles from side to side, every
way; and above it there were three hundred and six fields, each one less
in area than that beneath; and in this wise they tapered, until the
topmost field which lay direct beneath the lowermost floor of the Great
Redoubt, was but four miles every way.