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. 'And who art thou that ridest
so madly, and who is that whose tongue lolls out' -- and it actually
did -- 'and who runs by thee like a dog by a chariot?'
'It is the Lord Macumazahn, and with him is his dog, his black dog.
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