“I may tell you that,” said Amroth, “that you may know what you see.  There is no time here; and you have seen a universe made, and live its life, and die.  You have seen the worlds created.  That cloud of whirling suns, each with its planets, has taken shape before your eyes; life has arisen there, has developed; men like ourselves have lived, have wrestled with evil, have formed states, have died and vanished.  That is all but a single thought of God.”

Another came, and then another of the golden jets, each fading into darkness and dispersing.

“And now,” said Amroth, “the moment has come.  You are to make the last sacrifice of the soul.  Do not shrink back, fear nothing.  Leap into the abyss!”

The thought fell upon me with an infinity and an incredulity of horror that I cannot express in words.  I covered my eyes with my hands.

“Oh, I cannot, I cannot,” I said; “anything but this!  God be merciful; let me go rather to some infinite place of torment where at least I may feel myself alive.  Do not ask this of me!”

Amroth made no answer, and I saw that he was regarding me fixedly, himself pale to the lips; but with a touch of anger and even of contempt, mixed with a world of compassion and love.  There was something in this look which seemed to entreat me mutely for my own sake and his own to act.  I do not know what the impulse was that came to me—­self-contempt, trust, curiosity, the yearning of love.  I closed my eyes, I took a faltering step, and stumbled, huddling and aghast, over the edge.  The air flew up past me with a sort of shriek; I opened my eyes once, and saw the white cliffs speeding past.  Then an unconsciousness came over me and I knew no more.

XXXIII

I came to myself very gradually and dimly, with no recollection at first of what had happened.  I was lying on my back on some soft grassy place, with the air blowing cool over me.  I thought I saw Amroth bending over me with a look of extraordinary happiness, and felt his arm about me; but again I became unconscious, yet all the time with a blissfulness of repose and joy, far beyond what I had experienced at my first waking on the sunlit sea.  Again life dawned upon me.  I was there, I was myself.  What had happened to me?  I could not tell.  So I lay for a long time half dreaming and half swooning; till at last life seemed to come back suddenly to me, and I sat up.  Amroth was holding me in his arms close to the spot from which I had sprung.

“Have I been dreaming?” I said.  “Was it here? and when?  I cannot remember.  It seems impossible, but was I told to jump down?  What has happened to me?  I am confused.”

“You will know presently,” said Amroth, in a tone from which all the fear seemed to have vanished.  “It is all over, and I am thankful.  Do not try to recollect; it will come back to you presently.  Just rest now; you have been through strange things.”