and I tried to run away; but on turning, I became suddenly aware
that the whole country was filled with these awful shapes; and
the faces of those nearest to me were most dreadful, for their eyes,
and something in the expression, though not in the form, of their
faces, were human. I was absolutely alone in a terrible world peopled
with lions, too, of a monstrous kind. Recovering myself with an
effort, I resumed my flight, but, as I passed through the midst of
this concourse of monsters, it suddenly struck me that they were
perfectly unconscious of my presence. I even laid my hands, in
passing, on the heads and manes of several, but they gave no sign
of seeing me or of knowing that I touched them. At last I gained
the threshold of a great pavilion, not, apparently, built by hands,
but formed by Nature. The walls were solid, yet they were composed
of huge trees standing close together, like columns; and the roof
of the pavilion was formed by their massive foliage, through which
not a ray of outer light penetrated. Such light as there was seemed
nebulous, and appeared to rise out of the ground. In the centre
of this pavilion I stood alone, happy to have got clear away from
those terrible beasts and the gaze of their steadfast eyes.

As I stood there, I became conscious of the fact that the nebulous
light of the place was concentrating itself into a focus on the
columned wall opposite to me. It grew there, became intenser, and
then spread, revealing, as it spread, a series of moving pictures
that appeared to be scenes actually enacted before me. For the
figures in the pictures were living, and they moved before my eyes,
though I heard neither word nor sound. And this is what I saw.
First there came a writing on the wall of the pavilion:--" This
is the History of our World." These words, as I looked at them,
appeared to sink into the wall as they had risen out of it, and