distance, gradually shaping itself more and more distinctly to his gaze,
a Colossal Shadow,--a shadow that seemed partially borrowed from the
human shape, but immeasurably above the human stature, vague, dark,
almost formless and differing--he could not tell where or why--not only
from the proportions, but also from the limbs and outline of man.

The glare of the volcano, that seemed to shrink and collapse from this
gigantic and appalling apparition, nevertheless threw its light, redly
and steadily, upon another shape that stood beside, quiet and
motionless; and it was perhaps the contrast of these two things--the
Being and the Shadow--that impressed the beholder with the difference
between them,--the Man and the Superhuman. It was but for a moment,
nay, for the tenth part of a moment, that this sight was permitted to
the wanderer. A second eddy of sulphureous vapors from the volcano, yet
more rapidly, yet more densely than its predecessor, rolled over the
mountain; and either the nature of the exhalation, or the excess of his
own dread, was such that Glyndon, after one wild gasp for breath, fell
senseless on the earth.