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 teous and loving knight, descend without steps and at dawning look on the dial, and find there in the ever shifting shadow the true exemplar of variety.' But before mine host, (for I know it was none other) had finished this strange speech the floor beneath me began to sink and I passed from the arms of my mistress down through the tower into darkness till I was at the bottom of this secret shaft, far below the earth. Here I might beat the walls and cry out and none hindered me; and all through the night I raved like one written in the Books of the Moon even till the dawning came and one long ray came into that foul and loathsome pit lighting upon a dial set in the midst. And this place was so contrived with squint holes fashioned through the walls, that all the day the sunshine fell upon the dial and marked the hour, and by its brightness made my prison-house yet more noisome and abhorred. What food I had was flung down to me from above, but I saw no face and heard no spoken words throughout all the time I was thus clapped up, namely for nine months, more or less. And there doubtless I had died wretchedly, save that one day in my frenzy I cast mine arms about the pillar on which the dial stood and pulled with all my might striving to uproot it. And after many a grievous tug, in the strength of my madness, what I endeavoured I at last effected, and the pillar yielded and fell to one side, bringing with it the floor around in a circle of a cubit's diameter. And the beam of sunlight shining on this place showed me a steep flight of steps, and be-