to some other city beyond the hills over which the sun shone brighter,
or where there was more food, for he was poor, even perhaps where
people had not the custom of laughing at Sarnidac. So this procession
of figures that stooped and seemed larger than men went southward down
the road and a lame dwarf hobbled behind them.

Khamazan, now called the City of the Last of Temples, lies southward of
the Nydoon hills. This is the story of Pompeides, now chief prophet of
the only temple in the world, and greatest of all the prophets that
have been:

On the slopes of Nydoon I was seated once above Khamazan. There I saw
figures in the morning striding through much dust along the road that
leads across the world. Striding up the hill they came towards me, not
with the gait of men, and soon the first one came to the crest of the
hill where the road dips to find the plains again, where lies Khamazan.
And now I swear by all the gods that are gone that this thing happened
as I shall say it, and was surely so. When those that came striding up
the hill came to its summit they took not the road that goes down into
the plains nor trod the dust any longer, but went straight on and
upwards, striding as they strode before, as though the hill had not
ended nor the road dipped. And they strode as though they trod no
yielding substance, yet they stepped upwards through the air.

This the gods did, for They were not born men who strode that day so
strangely away from earth.

But I, when I saw this thing, when already three had passed me, leaving
earth, cried out before the fourth: