"I gave him half an hour's start and then resumed my march. If he
could travel beneath a noonday sun, so could I.
"In this fashion I presently came out upon a larger and higher
plateau, carpeted with a uniform, stunted undergrowth, and
extending, as flat as a table, to the very edge of a sheer
precipice, which rose from it to a height of three or four
hundred feet--gnarled, naked rock, showing no vestige of
vegetation.
"By this time the sound of falling water had become very loud,
and as I emerged from the gorge through which the path ran on to
this plateau I saw, on the further side of this tableland, the
yellow robe of the mendicant. He was walking straight for the
face of the precipice, and straight for the spot at which, from a
fissure in the rock, a little stream leapt out, to fall sheerly
ten or fifteen feet into a winding channel, along which it
bubbled away westward, doubtless to form a greater waterfall
beyond.
"The mendicant was fully half a mile away from me, but in that
clear tropical air was plainly visible; and, fearing that he
might look around, I stepped back into the comparative shadow of
the gorge and watched.
"Gentlemen, I saw a strange thing. Placing his bundle upon his
head, he walked squarely into the face of the waterfall and
disappeared!"
CHAPTER XXXII. STORY OF THE CITY OF FIRE (CONTINUED)
"'Quitting air, must pass through water.
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