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He turned again towards the mountain wall down which the day
had come to him.
Then very circumspectly he began his climb.
When sunset came he was not longer climbing, but he was far and high.
His clothes were torn, his limbs were bloodstained, he was bruised
in many places, but he lay as if he were at his ease, and there
was a smile on his face.
From where he rested the valley seemed as if it were in a pit
and nearly a mile below. Already it was dim with haze and shadow,
though the mountain summits around him were things of light and
fire. The mountain summits around him were things of light and
fire, and the little things in the rocks near at hand were drenched
with light and beauty, a vein of green mineral piercing the
grey, a flash of small crystal here and there, a minute,
minutely-beautiful orange lichen close beside his face. There
were deep, mysterious shadows in the gorge, blue deepening into
purple, and purple into a luminous darkness, and overhead was the
illimitable vastness of the sky. But he heeded these things no
longer, but lay quite still there, smiling as if he were content
now merely to have escaped from the valley of the Blind, in which
he had thought to be King. And the glow of the sunset passed, and
the night came, and still he lay there, under the cold, clear stars.
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