[Illustration: The Pilgrim and His Pilgrimage (see king002.png)]
For many, many, weary months the Pilgrim journeyed in the wide and
pathless Desert of Facts. So many indeed were the months that the
wayworn Pilgrim, himself, came at last to forget their number.
And always, for the Pilgrim, the sky by day was a sky of brass, softened
not by so much as a wreath of cloud mist. Always, for him, the hot air
was stirred not by so much as the lift of a wild bird's wing. Never, for
him, was the awful stillness of the night broken by voice of his kind,
by foot-fall of beast, or by rustle of creeping thing. For the toiling
Pilgrim in the vast and pathless Desert of Facts there was no kindly
face, no friendly fire. Only the stars were many--many and very near.
Day after day, as the Pilgrim labored onward, through the torturing
heat, under the sky of brass, he saw on either hand lakes of living
waters and groves of many palms. And the waters called him to their
healing coolness: the palms beckoned him to their restful shade and
shelter. Night after night, in the dreadful solitude, frightful Shapes
came on silent feet out of the silent darkness to stare at him with
doubtful, questioning, threatening eyes; drawing back at last, if he
stood still, as silently as they had come, or, if he advanced, vanishing
quickly, only to reappear as silently in another place.
But the Pilgrim knew that the enchanting scenes that lured him by day
were but pictures in the heated air. He knew that the fearful Shapes
that haunted him by night were but creatures of his own overwrought
fancy. And so he journeyed on and ever on, in the staggering heat, under
the sky of brass, in the awful stillness of the night: on and ever on,
through the wide and pathless waste, until he came at last to the
Outer-Edge-Of-Things--came to the place that is between the Desert of
Facts and the Beautiful Sea, even as it is written in the Law of the
Pilgrimage.
The tired feet of the Traveler left now the rough, hot floor of the
desert for a soft, cool carpet of velvet grass all inwrought with
blossoms that filled the air with fragrance. Over his head, tall trees
gently shook their glistening, shadowy leaves, while sweet voiced birds
of rare and wondrous plumage flitted from bough to bough. Across a sky
of deepest blue, fleets of fairy cloud ships, light as feathery down,
floated--floated--drifting lazily, as though, piloted only by the wind,
their pilot slept. All about him, as he walked, multitudes of sunlight
and shadow fairies danced gaily hand in hand. And over the shimmering
surface of the Sea a thousand thousand fairy waves ran joyously, one
after the other, from the sky line to the pebbly beach, making liquid
music clearer and softer than the softest of clear toned bells.
And there it was, in that wondrously beautiful place, the
Outer-Edge-Of-Things, that the Pilgrim found, fashioned of sheerest
white, with lofty dome, towering spires, and piercing minarets lifting
out of the living green, the Temple of Truth.
[Illustration: (see king003.png)]
In reverent awe the Pilgrim stood before the sacred object of his
Pilgrimage.
At last, with earnest step, the worshiper approached the holy edifice.
But when he would have passed through the high arched door, his way was
barred by one whose garments were white even as the whiteness of the
Temple, whose eyes were clear even as the skies, and whose face shone
even as the shining Beautiful Sea.