They went forward together, master and disciple, and before they were aware the red sun had sunk in the west and the light of the sky grew late. And this was the sight:

不覺的 is "before they were aware". 但見 raises the curtain on descriptive verse, and this is the third time the chapter has used it — once for the gorge, once for the duel, and now for nightfall.

Thin clouds in tangled disarray; the mountain moon dim and blurred.

撩亂 is tangled, in disarray; 昏蒙 is dusky and clouded. The rhapsody opens in paired four-character units, which is the standard first gear of the form.

Frost-colour fills the whole sky and breeds cold; the sound of wind on four sides pierces the body.

霜色 is the colour of frost; 透體 is to pierce clean through the body. The lines convert sight into sensation: the sky's colour is felt as cold, the wind's sound as a wound.

Where the lone bird goes, the grey islet stretches wide; where the sinking rose-cloud brightens, the far hills lie low.

渚 zhǔ is a small islet in a stream; 落霞 is the falling rose-cloud of sunset. The line stretches to seven syllables here, opening the scene out exactly as the light does.

In the thin wood a thousand trees roar; on the empty ridge one gibbon cries.

疏林 is thin, sparse woodland. The cry of a lone gibbon is the oldest signal of desolation in Chinese verse — a thousand years older than this novel, and instantly legible to any reader of the time, the way a lone wolf howl is to us. And the line contracts to five syllables, the landscape tightening as night comes down.

On the long road no traveller's track is seen; ten thousand lǐ off, a homeward boat puts in at nightfall.

長途 takes 長 as cháng, long; 行人 is the traveller, with 行 read xíng. The rhapsody ends on the only arrival it contains — a boat coming home at nightfall — and the boat belongs to somebody else. The pilgrims have no home to reach. They have a road.