Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/224

 treacherous as Dartmoor, and then, I have a map Dr. Paisley drew for me a few days ago. I saved it until you should come along and enjoy it too. I understand we shall find paths to follow, and if not, why, we can turn back.'

Soon they left the confines of the village and found themselves floating off over the coarsely carpeted moors in the spreading softness of the fog. The thick banks undulated about them, sometimes lifting and showing wild and fantastic glimpses of a desolate land. Almost everything seemed to be horizontal, but such things as stood perpendicular in this flat world gained a gigantic height. The two human beings looked at each other in amazement that such a tall man and woman existed. It was hard to talk naturally—to avoid whispering.

'I feel,' said Lanice at last, 'that when we get there the druids will climb up out of their tumuli and sacrifice us.'

Professor Ripley was dubiously studying tiny footpaths, trying to orient himself by a non-existent sun.

'If we are now on the right path,' he said, 'we shall come to an ancient cross'—and as he spoke and stared, the fog lifted and a broken, wordless cross, looking forty feet high, seemed to walk towards them like a holy vision.

'I do not think it was here,' said Lanice helplessly, 'before you spoke. Do you believe in magic?'

'Yes—when in Cornwall. I believe in the giant Tregeagle and in Hell Hounds, but most of all in the