And--he could look straight at it without blinking!
His thoughts ran back to the first account of the Rhamda. The man
had looked straight at the sun and had been blinded. This
accounted for it! The man had been accustomed to this huge, soft-
glowing beauty. An amberous sun, deep yellow, sleeping; could it
be, after all, dreamland?
But there were other things: the myriad tintinnabulations of these
microscopic bells, never ceasing, musically throbbing; and now,
the exotic delight of the softest of perfumes, an air barely
tinted with violet and rose, and the breath of woodland wild
flowers. He could not comprehend it. He looked at the purple
clouds above the lotus sun, hardly believing, and deeply in doubt.
A great white bird dived suddenly out of the heavens and flew into
the focus of his vision. In all the tales of his boyhood, of large
and beautiful rocs and other birds, he had come across nothing
like this. From the perspective it must have measured a full three
hundred feet from tip to tip; it was shaped like a swan and flew
like an eagle, with magnificent, lazy sweeps of the wings; while
its plumage was as white as the snow, new fallen on the mountains.
And right behind it, in pursuit, hurtled a huge black thing, fully
as large and just as swift; a tremendous black crow, so black that
its sides gave off a greenish shimmer.
Just then the woman closed the window.
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