Beyond pointed to the constellation of the Arth, or 

 the Blue Bear, which nightly prowls through the vast 

 abysses f tne Plar sky. 



When the boy turned his gaze from the 

 great constellation which hung in the dark 

 wilderness overhead, he saw that he was alone 

 again. While he yet wondered in great awe 

 at what he had seen and heard, he felt himself 

 float like a mist and become like a cloud, and, 

 as a cloud, rise beyond the brows of the hills, 

 and ascend the invisible stairways of the sky. 



When for minutes that were as hours he 

 had moved thus mysteriously into the pathless 

 and unvisited realms of the air, he saw that he 

 had left the highest clouds like dust on a 

 valley-road after one has climbed to the 

 summit of a mountain : nor could he see the 

 earth save as a blind and obscure thing that 

 moved between the twilights of night and 

 dawn. 



It seemed to him thereafter that a swoon 

 came over him, in which he passed beyond the 

 far-off blazing fires of strange stars. At last, 

 suddenly, he stood on the verge of Arth, or 

 Arth Uthyr, the Great Bear. There he saw, 

 with the vision of immortal not of mortal eyes, 

 a company of most noble and majestic figures 

 seated at what he thought a circular abyss but 

 which had the semblance of a vast table. Each 

 320 



