or strength, against a monster who racked him in a fierce embrace. A
thousand scenes flashed through Valmond's brain, before his eyes, while
the great wheel of torture went round, and he was broken, broken-mended
and broken again, upon it. Spinning--he was for ever spinning, like a
tireless moth through a fiery air; and the world went roaring past. In
vain he cried to the wheelman to stop the wheel: there was no answer.
Would those stars never cease blinking in and out, or the wind stop
whipping the swift clouds past? So he went on, endless years, driving
through space, some terrible intangible weight dragging at his heart, and
all his body panting as it spun. Grotesque faces came and went, and bright-eyed women floated by, laughing
at him, beckoning to him; but he could not come, because of this endless
going. He heard them singing, he felt the divine notes in his battered
soul; he tried to weep for the hopeless joy of it; but the tears came no
higher than his throat. Why did they mock him so? At last, all the
figures merged into one, and she had the face--ah, he had seen it
centuries ago!--of Madame Chalice. Strange that she was so young still,
and that was so long past--when he stood on a mountain, and, clambering
a high wall of rock, looked over into a happy No-man's Land.
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