A moment later a man's head appeared to rise out of the ground a short distance away. He was ascending1 the farther slope of a low hill whose crest2 was hardly to be distinguished3 from the general level. His whole figure soon came into view against the background of grey cloud. He was half naked, half clad(穿着) in skins. His hair was unkempt(蓬乱的) , his beard long and ragged4. In one hand he carried a bow and arrow; the other held a blazing torch with a long trail of black smoke. He walked slowly and with caution, as if he feared falling into some open grave concealed6 by the tall grass. This strange apparition7(幽灵,幻影) surprised but did not alarm, and taking such a course as to intercept8 him I met him almost face to face, accosting9 him with the familiar salutation,
'God keep you.'
He gave no heed10, nor did he arrest his pace.
'Good stranger,' I continued, 'I am ill and lost. Direct me, I beseech11(恳求) you, to Carcosa.'
The man broke into a barbarous(野蛮的) chant in an unknown tongue, passing on and away.
An owl5 on the branch of a decayed tree hooted12 dismally13 and was answered by another in the distance. Looking upward, I saw through a sudden rift14 in the clouds Aldebaran and the Hyades! In all this there was a hint of night -- the lynx, the man with the torch, the owl. Yet I saw -- I saw even the stars in absence of the darkness. I saw, but was apparently15 not seen nor heard. Under what awful spell did I exist?
I seated myself at the root of a great tree, seriously to consider what it were best to do. That I was mad I could no longer doubt, yet recognized a ground of doubt in the conviction. Of fever I had no trace. I had, withal, a sense of exhilaration and vigour16 altogether unknown to me -- a feeling of mental and physical exaltation. My senses seemed all alert; I could feel the air as a ponderous17(笨重的) substance; I could hear the silence.
A great root of the giant tree against whose trunk I leaned as I sat held enclosed in its grasp a slab18 of stone, a part of which protruded19 into a recess20 formed by another root. The stone was thus partly protected from the weather, though greatly decomposed21(已腐烂的) . Its edges were worn round, its corners eaten away, its surface deeply furrowed22 and scaled. Glittering particles of mica23 were visible in the earth about it-vestiges(痕迹) of its decomposition24. This stone had apparently marked the grave out of which the tree had sprung ages ago. The tree's exacting25 roots had robbed the grave and made the stone a prisoner.