He had entered the wood, and the trail seemed to cleave through a
far-stretching, motionless sea of ferns that flowed on either side to
the height of his horse's flanks. The straight shafts of the trees rose
like columns from their hidden bases and were lost again in a roof
of impenetrable leafage, leaving a clear space of fifty feet between,
through which the surrounding horizon of sky was perfectly visible.
All the light that entered this vast sylvan hall came from the sides;
nothing permeated from above; nothing radiated from below; the height
of the crest on which the wood was placed gave it this lateral
illumination, but gave it also the profound isolation of some temple
raised by long-forgotten hands. In spite of the height of these clear
shafts, they seemed dwarfed by the expanse of the wood, and in the
farthest perspective the base of ferns and the capital of foliage
appeared almost to meet. As the boy had warned him, the slide had turned
aside, skirting the wood to follow the incline, and presently the little
trail he now followed vanished utterly, leaving him and his horse adrift
breast-high in this green and yellow sea of fronds.
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