The Night Land

And in this wise passed three days and nights; yet both in the

sleep-time and the time of waking did great multitudes cease not to

watch; so that many went hungry for sleep, as in truth did I. And

sometimes we saw those Youths with plainness; but other times they were

lost to our sight in the utter shadows of the Night Land. Yet, by the

telling of our instruments, and the sense of my hearing, there was no

awaredness among the Monsters, and the Forces of Evil, that any were

abroad from the Pyramid; so that a little hope came into our hearts that

yet there might be no tragedy

. And times, would they cease from their way, and sit about in circles

among the shadows and the grey moss-bushes, which grew hardly here or

there about. And we knew that they had food with them to eat; for this

could we see with plainness, as some odd, grim flare of light from the

infernal fires struck upon one or another strangely, and passed, and

left them in the darkness.

And who of you shall conceive what was in the hearts of the fathers, and

the mothers that bore the youths, and who never ceased away from the

Northward embrasures; but spied out in terror and in tears, and maybe

oft with so good glasses as did show them the very features and look

upon the face of son and son.

And the kin of the watchers brought to them food, and tended them, so

that they had no need to cease from their watching; and beds were made

in the embrasures, rough and resourceful, that they might sleep quickly

a little; yet be ever ready, if those cruel Monsters without made

discovery of those their children.

Thrice in those three days of journeying to the Northward, did the

Youths sleep, and we perceived that some kept a watch, and so knew that

there was a kind of order and leadership among them; also, they had each

his weapon upon his hip, and this gave to us a further plea to hope. A

nd concerning this same carrying of weapons, I can but set out here

that no healthful male or female in all the Mighty Pyramid but possessed

such a weapon, and was trained to it from childhood; so that a ripe and

extraordinary skill in the use thereof was common to most. Yet some

breaking of Rule had there been, that the Youths had each achieved to be

armed; for the weapons were stored in every tenth house of the cities,

in the care of the charging-masters.