A great while seemed to pass over me, and now I could nowhere see anything.  I had passed beyond the fixed stars and plunged into the huge blackness that waits beyond.  All this time I had experienced little, save a sense of lightness and cold discomfort.  Now however the atrocious darkness seemed to creep into my soul, and I became filled with fear and despair.  What was going to become of me?  Where was I going?  Even as the thoughts were formed, there grew against the impalpable blackness that wrapped me a faint tinge of blood.  It seemed extraordinarily remote, and mistlike; yet, at once, the feeling of oppression was lightened, and I no longer despaired.

Slowly, the distant redness became plainer and larger; until, as I drew nearer, it spread out into a great, somber glare—­dull and tremendous.  Still, I fled onward, and, presently, I had come so close, that it seemed to stretch beneath me, like a great ocean of somber red.  I could see little, save that it appeared to spread out interminably in all directions.

In a further space, I found that I was descending upon it; and, soon, I sank into a great sea of sullen, red-hued clouds.  Slowly, I emerged from these, and there, below me, I saw the stupendous plain that I had seen from my room in this house that stands upon the borders of the Silences.

Presently, I landed, and stood, surrounded by a great waste of loneliness.  The place was lit with a gloomy twilight that gave an impression of indescribable desolation.

Afar to my right, within the sky, there burnt a gigantic ring of dull-red fire, from the outer edge of which were projected huge, writhing flames, darted and jagged.  The interior of this ring was black, black as the gloom of the outer night.  I comprehended, at once, that it was from this extraordinary sun that the place derived its doleful light.

From that strange source of light, I glanced down again to my surroundings.  Everywhere I looked, I saw nothing but the same flat weariness of interminable plain.  Nowhere could I descry any signs of life; not even the ruins of some ancient habitation.

Gradually, I found that I was being borne forward, floating across the flat waste.  For what seemed an eternity, I moved onward.  I was unaware of any great sense of impatience; though some curiosity and a vast wonder were with me continually.  Always, I saw around me the breadth of that enormous plain; and, always, I searched for some new thing to break its monotony; but there was no change—­only loneliness, silence, and desert.

Presently, in a half-conscious manner, I noticed that there was a faint mistiness, ruddy in hue, lying over its surface.  Still, when I looked more intently, I was unable to say that it was really mist; for it appeared to blend with the plain, giving it a peculiar unrealness, and conveying to the senses the idea of unsubstantiality.

Gradually, I began to weary with the sameness of the thing.  Yet, it was a great time before I perceived any signs of the place, toward which I was being conveyed.