It was like a dream itself, the silence of it as they were borne forward upon those soft, shuffling sponge feet, and the flitting, flickering figures which oscillated upon every side of them.

The whole universe seemed to be hung as a monstrous time-dial in front of them.

A star would glimmer like a lantern on the very level of their path.

They looked again, and it was a hand's-breadth up, and another was shining beneath it.

Hour after hour the broad stream flowed sedately across the deep blue background, worlds and systems drifting majestically overhead, and pouring over the dark horizon.