from the cloud in some new and terrible shape.
But for a long time all he did was to rise up,
chop with his jaws, and roll his eyes, then sink
down into his cloud, and I could hear him
chop, and feel he was rolling his eyes again.
Presently I noticed, that each time he sank
down, he did not go so far down as before. I
found this out first, by seeing the loop of his
coat sticking up out of his cloud, when he had
once dwarfed; next I saw his nose go down
when he chopped; next I saw his chin come
up, until at last, though he still kept up an
uncertain jogging motion up and down, he
remained a giant.

I wanted to know why he jogged. My other
self knew, but would not tell me. Looking at
him made me dizzy, and I felt I was jogging
too, but why we both jogged I hadn't the
remotest idea. I tried to stop jogging, but in
vain. A dreadful feeling came over me as the
jogs got worse. I had found it out. Idiot
that I was, the bed that I had trusted in
was no bed at all, but the back of a great
bustard that was jogging and jolting along
with me at a fearful speed, and the dreadful
dwarf-giant was on the back of another, chasing
me, and counting off every mile with a chop. I
had awoke to my position too late. I was being
hurried I knew not where. Wasn't I dreaming
now, and hadn't I made a mistake? my other
self asked. A mistake? And going a mile a
moment, and feeling the wind cutting my face,
like a scourge? Oh! it was too much: why I
could hear the other bustard with the dwarf on
it, not three paces behind. I could hear the
bird breathing, snorting, snoring. Was it myself
snoring? I don't snore. And was there any
draught from a window enough to cut you in
two? No, no. I was going, on my heaving,
lurching, brute of a bird, goodness only knew
where, at about the rate of a cannon-ball, so
fast, that the dreadful dwarf was chopping an
incessant tattoo with his teeth, to tick off the
miles. Whether the road was earth, or air, or
sky I could not tell; we were going too fast to
have been able to see houses, trees, or people,
had we passed any. There was nothing but a
kind of dusty mist, that rose up and obscured
whatever it was that brutal bird's feet were
racing over. Then I thought I wouldn't put up
with this treatment. Aware, however, that it
was required of me for some inscrutable purpose
to pursue my headlong career, I thought I
would go to sleep on the bustard's back, and
dream that I was being still hurried along and
chopped after. With a sleepy kind of cunning
it occurred to me, how this would swindle the
power that was driving me, and the chopping
dwarf, and the beastly bird, when they came to
find they were only racing after a dream.

I went to sleep on the bustard's back and
chuckled. But I felt I had been guilty of a
mean piece of deception, and dreaded retribution.
I then knew by some kind of intuition
that the dreadful dwarf had a pistol, and was
going to shoot me, as soon as his jogging bird
would let him take aim. I didn't know whether
still to keep on sleeping, or to be honest, and
wake. I reflected, however, that if I only
dreamed he shot me, I couldn't be killed, whilst
if I woke up and was shot, it might be fatal, so
I basely continued to dream. A horrible
thought then took hold of me. If I still kept
on sleeping, I might be killed in my sleep, and
not know it! That would be awkward.
It was essential I should think of some deep-
laid scheme to prevent this. You see, I
reasoned with myself, so long as your will has the
power to direct your body to obedience, you
can't be dead. As soon as he shoots, you
repeat to yourself, "All right." If your
tongue says it when you tell it to, and if your
ears hear your tongue say it, you are not dead.
Satisfied with this test, I continued to dream
the bustard was still urging me wildly forward,
and had the indescribable pleasure of feeling I
was deceiving the bustard, and also old lobster
chops, who didn't know but what I was really
there, and not safe in dreamland out of his
reach.

Crack! I heard the dwarf's pistol go. "All
right," I said to myself, lo my delight I
heard myself say it. There was no mistake
about it, I had circumvented him. Alas! it
was a revolver. Crack! again. "All right"
again. I was unmistakably alive. I can't tell
you how proud I was of this test, so simple
yet so effective. Crack! twice more. "All
right" still. Of course, I thought, how could
any one be killed in a dream? Absurd, you
know.

Crack!

I had felt no pain. Bless me, how ever was
it? Had I woke up by accident? I tried to
pronounce my two reassuring words, but my
tongue refused obedience; my ears couldn't
hear it. I tried several times, but in vain.
Then it occurred to me I was dead. Dead, the
unfortunate victim of an erroneous theory.
There could be no doubt that I was dead, for I
immediately felt myself slowly rising, like a mist,
through the air, and floating through the close-
woven spiny foliage of two fir-trees, so dense
you could not shoot an arrow through. I
inhaled, in my vapoury form, the aromatic gums
of the pine as I passed through the boughs;
then, rising, found my mist had contracted and
become pure spirit that glowed like fire, till I
knew / was the tiny star, that had taken just
half an hour to pass through the great top
boughs of the fir-tree. I knew, moreover, that
I, the star, would be visible to myself lying in
my bed at the inn. I could also see my own
dead body lying on its face beneath the fir-
trees, and I saw the dreadful dwarf come and
turn me over to see if I really was dead, and,
being satisfied, saw him ride away on his bird,
chopping. The last I saw of him in the horizon,
when he was bird down and lobster chops
down, was his loop, and it puzzled me still to
think what that loop was for. It neither
puzzled nor confused me to think I had three
selfs—viz., my present, or star—self, my
murdered self, and my still sleeping self at the inn.

Then I made a discovery I longed to impart
to Professor Airy, Astronomer Royal. Stars, I