The Night Land

But when the Master came back to knowledge of that present, he would

rouse and chide, and they, all those lesser ones, would fly swiftly and

guiltily to their various works; and yet, so I have thought since, each

with a muddled and bewildered and thoughtful air upon him; and hungry

they were for more, and ever wondering and setting questions about.

And so it was also with those others--those learned ones who were not of

the Tower of Observation, and who disbelieved even whilst they hungered.

Listen would they, though I talked from the first hour, which was the

"dawn," to the fifteenth hour, which was the beginning of the "night";

for the Sleep-Time was set thus, after other usage and experiment. And,

odd whiles, I found that there were among them, men of extraordinary

learning who upheld my tellings as tales of verity; and so there was a

faction; but, later, there grew more to believe; and whether they

believed, or not, all were ready to listen; so that I might have spended

my days in talk; only that I had my work to do.

But the Master Monstruwacan believed from the beginning, and was wise

always to understand; so that I loved him for this, as for many another

dear quality. And so, as may be conceived, among all those millions I was singled out

to be known; for the stories that I told went downward through a

thousand cities; and, presently, in the lowest tier of the Underground

Fields, an hundred miles deep in the earth below the Redoubt, I found

that the very ploughboys knew something concerning my tellings; and

gathered about me one time and another when the Master Monstruwacan and

I had gone down, regarding some matter that dealt with the Earth-Current

and our Instruments.

And of the Underground Fields (though in that age we called them no more

than "The Fields") I should set down a little; for they were the

mightiest work of this world; so that even the Last Redoubt was but a

small thing beside them. An hundred miles deep lay the lowest of the

Underground Fields, and was an hundred miles from side to side, every

way; and above it there were three hundred and six fields, each one less

in area than that beneath; and in this wise they tapered, until the

topmost field which lay direct beneath the lowermost floor of the Great

Redoubt, was but four miles every way.

And thus it will be seen that these fields, lying one beneath the other,

formed a mighty and incredible Pyramid of Country Lands in the deep

earth, an hundred miles from the base unto the topmost field.