The moon rose higher and the plain grew spectral, the town a dream town,
and the ships dream ships. Ferne turned slightly so that he might behold
the Cordillera. In mystery and enormity the mountains reared themselves,
high as the battlements of heaven, deep as those of hell. The
Elizabethan looked long upon them, and he wreathed that utter wall, that
sombre and terrific keep, with strange imaginings.

At last the two, master and boy, arose, and climbing the farther slope
to the tunal, began to skirt that spiked and thorny circlet, moving
warily because to the core it was envenomed. Beneath the sun it swarmed
with hideous life; beneath the moon the poison might yet stir. The moon
silvered the edge of things, drew illusion like a veil across the
haunted ring; below, what hidden foulness!... Did the life there know
its hideousness? Those lengths and coils, those twisting locks of
Medusa, might think themselves desirable. These pulpy, starkly branching
cacti, these shrubs that bred poignards, these fibrous ropes, dark and
knotted lianas, binding all together like monstrous exaggerations of the
tenants of the place, like serpents seen of a drunkard, were they not
to themselves as fair as the fairest vine or tree or flower? The
dwellers here deceived themselves, never dreamed they were so thwart and
distorted.

As he walked, the halo of the moon seemed to widen until it embraced a
quarter of the heavens. The sea beneath was molten silver. A low sound
of waves was in his ears, and a wind pressed against him faintly, like a
ghost's withstanding. From the woods towards the mountains came a long,
bestial cry, hoarse and mournful. "O God," said Sir Mortimer, "whither
dost Thou draw us? What am I? What is my meaning and my end?"

Beyond loomed the fortress, all its lineaments blurred, softened,