schemes to turn our fair world into an undreamed-of-hell.

My strength began to come back to me. I found a thicket and slept;
slept it must have been for many hours, for when I again awakened the
dawn was rosing the east. I will not tell my sufferings. Suffice it to
say that I found a spring and some fruit, and just before dusk had
recovered enough to writhe up to the top of the wall and discover
where I was.

The place was one of the farther islets of the Nan-Matal. To the north
I caught the shadows of the ruins of Nan-Tauach, where was the moon
door, black against the sky. Where was the moon door--which, someway,
somehow, I must reach, and quickly.

At dawn of the next day I got together driftwood and bound it together
in shape of a rough raft with fallen creepers. Then, with a makeshift
paddle, I set forth for Nan-Tauach. Slowly, painfully, I crept up to
it. It was late afternoon before I grounded my shaky craft on the
little beach between the ruined sea-gates and, creeping up the giant
steps, made my way to the inner enclosure.

And at its opening I stopped, and the tears ran streaming down my
cheeks while I wept aloud with sorrow and with disappointment and with
weariness.

For the great wall in which had been set the pale slab whose threshold
we had crossed to the land of the Shining One lay shattered and
broken. The monoliths were heaped about; the wall had fallen, and
about them shone a film of water, half covering them.