Poor Daylight, too, was pretty nearly finished, and no wonder.

But there was a smell of dawn in the air, and we might not stay; better that all three of us should die upon the road than that we should linger while there was life in us.

The air was thick and heavy, as it sometimes is before the dawn breaks, and -- another infallible sign in certain parts of Zu-Vendis that sunrise is at hand -- hundreds of little spiders pendant on the end of long tough webs were floating about in it.

These early-rising creatures, or rather their webs, caught upon the horse's and our own forms by scores, and, as we had neither the time nor the energy to brush them off, we rushed along covered with hundreds of long grey threads that streamed out a yard or more behind us -- and a very strange appearance they must have given us.
And now before us are the huge brazen gates of the outer wall of the Frowning City, and a new and horrible doubt strikes me: What if they will not let us in?
'_Open! open!_' I shout imperiously, at the same time giving the royal password.

'_Open! open!_ a messenger, a messenger with tidings of the war!' 'What news ?' cried the guard.