She gazed upward and was astounded. How steep was the
rounded slope on all sides! There were no sides; it was a circle. She
looked up at a round lake of deep translucent sky. Such depth of blue, such
exquisite rare color! Carley imagined she could gaze through it to the
infinite beyond.
She closed her eyes and rested. Soon the laboring of heart and breath
calmed to normal, so that she could not hear them. Then she lay perfectly
motionless. With eyes shut she seemed still to look, and what she saw was
the sunlight through the blood and flesh of her eyelids. It was red, as
rare a hue as the blue of sky. So piercing did it grow that she had to
shade her eyes with her arm.
Again the strange, rapt glow suffused her body. Never in all her life had
she been so absolutely alone. She might as well have been in her grave. She
might have been dead to all earthy things and reveling in spirit in the
glory of the physical that had escaped her in life. And she abandoned
herself to this influence.
She loved these dry, dusty cinders; she loved the crater here hidden from
all save birds; she loved the desert, the earth--above all, the sun. She
was a product of the earth--a creation of the sun.
Pages:
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322