The sea of crimson lacquer, with its floating moons of luminous colour⁠—this bow of prismed stone leaping to the weird isle crowned by the anomalous, aureate excrescence⁠—the half human batrachians⁠—the elfland through which we had passed, with all its hidden wonders and terrors⁠—I felt the foundations of my cherished knowledge shaking. Was this all a dream? Was this body of mine lying somewhere, fighting a fevered death, and all these but images floating through the breaking chambers of my brain? My knees shook; involuntarily I groaned.

Lakla turned, looked at me anxiously, slipped a soft arm behind me, held me till the vertigo passed.

“Patience,” she said. “The bearers come. Soon you shall rest.”

I looked; down toward us from the bow’s end were leaping swiftly another score of the frog-men. Some bore litters, high, handled, not unlike palanquins⁠—