Observing that his hosts did not propose to descend, he begged them
to wait for him, and scrambled down to the surface. When he got
there, he found the water perfectly motionless and of a colourless
transparency. He walked onto it, lay down at full length, and peered
into the depths. It was weirdly clear: he could see down for an
indefinite distance, without arriving at any bottom. Some dark,
shadowy objects, almost out of reach of his eyes, were moving about.
Then a sound, very faint and mysterious, seemed to come up through
the gnawl water from an immense depth. It was like the rhythm of a
drum. There were four beats of equal length, but the accent was on
the third. It went on for a considerable time, and then ceased.

The sound appeared to him to belong to a different world from that
in which he was travelling. The latter was mystical, dreamlike, and
unbelievable--the drumming was like a very dim undertone of reality.
It resembled the ticking of a clock in a room full of voices, only
occasionally possible to be picked up by the ear.

He rejoined Panawe and Joiwind, but said nothing to them about his
experience. They all walked round the rim of the crater, and gazed
down on the opposite side. Precipices similar to those that had
overlooked the desert here formed the boundary of a vast moorland
plain, whose dimensions could not be measured by the eye. It was
solid land, yet he could not make out its prevailing colour. It was
as if made of transparent glass, but it did not glitter in the
sunlight. No objects in it could be distinguished, except a rolling
river in the far distance, and, farther off still, on the horizon, a
line of dark mountains, of strange shapes. Instead of being rounded,
conical, or hogbacked, these heights were carved by nature into the