"Well, then, friend Nessus, I am at your service."

And in a trice Jurgen was on the Centaur's back, and the two of them
had somehow come out of the cave, and were crossing Amneran Heath.
So they passed into a wooded place, where the light of sunset yet
lingered, rather unaccountably. Now the Centaur went westward. And
now about the pawnbroker's shoulders and upon his breast and over
his lean arms glittered like a rainbow the many-colored shirt of
Nessus.

For a while they went through the woods, which were composed of big
trees standing a goodish distance from one another, with the
Centaur's gilded hoofs rustling and sinking in a thick carpet of
dead leaves, all gray and brown, in level stretches that were
unbroken by any undergrowth. And then they came to a white roadway
that extended due west, and so were done with the woods. Now
happened an incredible thing in which Jurgen would never have
believed had he not seen it with his own eyes: for now the Centaur
went so fast that he gained a little by a little upon the sun, thus
causing it to rise in the west a little by a little; and these two
sped westward in the glory of a departed sunset. The sun fell full
in Jurgen's face as he rode straight toward the west, so that he
blinked and closed his eyes, and looked first toward this side, then
the other. Thus it was that the country about him, and the persons
they were passing, were seen by him in quick bright flashes, like
pictures suddenly transmuted into other pictures; and all his
memories of this shining highway were, in consequence, always
confused and incoherent.