Loose and enormous they gradually unfolded, then
suddenly swung free and dropped with a silent dip and rush. Night
swooped down upon the leagues of Jura forest. She spread her tent
across the entire range.
The threads were fastened everywhere now, and the uprights all in
place. Moths were busy in all directions, showing the way, while bats
by the dozen darted like black lightning from corner to corner, making
sure that every spar and beam was fixed and steady. So exquisitely
woven was the structure that it moved past them overhead without the
faintest sound, yet so frail and so elastic that the whirring of the
moths sent ripples of quivering movement through the entire framework.
'Hush!' murmured Rogers, 'we're properly inside it now. Don't think of
anything in particular. Just follow your wandering minds and wait.'
The children lay very close against him. He felt their warmth and the
breathing of their little bosoms. All three moved sympathetically
within the rhythm of the dusk. The 'inside' of each went floating up
into the darkening sky.
The general plan of the scaffolding they clearly made out as they
passed among its myriad, mile-long rafters, but the completed temple,
of course, they never saw. Black darkness hides that ever. Night's
secret mystery lies veiled finally in its innermost chamber, whence it
steals forth to enchant the mind of men with its strange bewilderment.
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