第 35 页

After a few minutes Maskull said, "Why did we come here, then?"

"To follow Surtur."

"True. But where is he?"

"Closer at hand than you think, perhaps."

"Do you know that he is regarded as a god here, Krag? ... There is supernatural fire, too, which I have been led to believe is somehow connected with him.... ? Why do you keep up the mystery? Who and what is Surtur?"

"Don't disturb yourself about that. You will never know."

"Do you know?"

"I know," snarled Krag.

"The devil here is called Krag," went on Maskull, peering into his face.

"As long as pleasure is worshiped, Krag will always be the devil."

"Here we are, talking face to face, two men together.... What am I to believe of you?"

"Believe your senses. The real devil is Crystalman."

They continued descending the landslip. The sun's rays had grown insufferably hot. In front of them, down below in the far distance, Maskull saw water and land intermingled. It appeared that they were travelling toward a lake district.

"What have you and Nightspore been doing during the last four days, Krag? What happened to the torpedo?"

"You're just about on the same mental level as a man who sees a brand-new palace, and asks what has become of the scaffolding."

"What palace have you been building, then?"

"We have not been idle," said Krag. "While you have been murdering and lovemaking, we have had our work."

"And how have you been made acquainted with my actions?"

"Oh, you're an open book. Now you've got a mortal heart wound on account of a woman you knew for six hours."

Maskull turned pale. "Sneer away, Krag! If you lived with a woman for six hundred years and saw her die, that would never touch your leather heart. You haven't even the feelings of an insect."

"Behold the child defending its toys!" said Krag, grinning faintly.

Maskull stopped short. "What do you want with me, and why did you bring me here?"

"It's no use stopping, even for the sake of theatrical effect," said Krag, pulling him into motion again. "The distance has got to be covered, however often we pull up."

When he touched him, Maskull felt a terrible shooting pain through his heart.

"I can't go on regarding you as a man, Krag. You're something more than a man - whether good or evil, I can't say."

Krag looked yellow and formidable. He did not reply to Maskull's remark, but after a pause said, "So you've been trying to find Surtur on your own account, during the intervals between killing and fondling?"

"What was that drumming?" demanded Maskull.

"You needn't look so important. We know you had your ear to the keyhole. But you could join the assembly, the music was not playing for you, my friend."

Maskull smiled rather bitterly. "At all events, I listen through no more keyholes. I have finished with life. I belong to nobody and nothing any more, from this time forward."

"Brave Words, brave words! We shall see. Perhaps Crystalman will make one more attempt on you. There is still time for one more."

"Now I don't understand you."

"You think you are thoroughly disillusioned, don't you? Well, that may prove to be the last and strongest illusion of all."

The conversation ceased. They reached the foot of the landslip an hour later. Branchspell was steadily mounting the cloudless sky. It was approaching Sarclash, and it was an open question whether or not it would clear its peak. The heat was sweltering. The long, massive, saucer-shaped ridge behind them, with its terrific precipices, was glowing with bright morning colours. Adage, towering up many thousands of feet higher still, guarded the end of it like a lonely Colossus. In front of them, starting from where they stood, was a cool and enchanting wilderness of little lakes and forests. The water of the lakes was dark green; the forests were asleep, waiting for the rising of Alppain.

"Are we now in Barey?" asked Maskull.

"Yes - and there is one of the natives."

There was an ugly glint in his eye as he spoke the words, but Maskull did not see it.

A man was leaning in the shade against one of the first trees, apparently waiting for them to come up. He was small, dark, and beardless, and was still in early manhood. He was clothed in a dark blue, loosely flowing robe, and wore a broad-brimmed slouch hat. His face, which was not disfigured by any special organs, was pale, earnest, and grave, yet somehow remarkably pleasing.

Before a word was spoken, he warmly grasped Maskull's hand, but even while he was in the act of doing so he threw a queer frown at Krag. The latter responded with a scowling grin.

When he opened his mouth to speak, his voice was a vibrating baritone, but it was at the same time strangely womanish in its modulations and variety of tone.

"I've been waiting for you here since sunrise," he said. "Welcome to Barey, Maskull! Let's hope you'll forget your sorrows here, you over-tested man."

Maskull stared at him, not without friendliness. "What made you expect me, and how do you know my name?"

The stranger smiled, which made his face very handsome. "I'm Gangnet. I know most things."

"Haven't you a greeting for me too - Gangnet?" asked Krag, thrusting his forbidding features almost into the other's face.

"I know you,. Krag. There are few places where you are welcome."

"And I know you, Gangnet - you man-woman.... Well, we are here together, and you must make what you can of it. We are going down to the Ocean."

The smile faded from Gangnet's face. "I can't drive you away, Krag - but I can make you the unwelcome third."

Krag threw back his head, and gave a loud, grating laugh. "That bargain suits me all right. As long as I have the substance, you may have the shadow, and much good may it do you."

"Now that it's all arranged so satisfactorily," said Maskull, with a hard smile, "permit me to say that I don't desire any society at all at present.... You take too much for granted, Krag. You have played the false friend once already.... I presume I'm a free agent?"

"To be a free man, one must have a universe of one's own," said Krag, with a jeering look. "What do you say, Gangnet - is this a free world?"

"Freedom from pain and ugliness should be every man's privilege," returned Gangnet tranquilly. "Maskull is quite within his rights, and if you'll engage to leave him I'll do the same."

"Maskull can change face as often as he likes, but he won't get rid of me so easily. Be easy on that point, Maskull."

"It doesn't matter," muttered Maskull. "Let everyone join in the procession. In a few hours I shall finally be free, anyhow, if what they say is true."

"I'll lead the way," said Gangnet. "You don't know this country, of course, Maskull. When we get to the flat lands some miles farther down, we shall be able to travel by water, but at present we must walk, I fear."

"Yes, you fear - you fear!" broke out Krag, in a highpitched, scraping voice. "You eternal loller!"

Maskull kept looking from one to the other in amazement. There seemed to be a determined hostility between the two, which indicated an intimate previous acquaintance.

They set off through a wood, keeping close to its border, so that for a mile or more they were within sight of the long, narrow lake that flowed beside it. The trees were low and thin; their dolm-coloured leaves were all folded. There was no underbrush - they walked on clean, brown earth, A distant waterfall sounded. They were in shade, but the air was pleasantly warm. There were no insects to irritate them. The bright lake outside looked cool and poetic.

Gangnet pressed Maskull's arm affectionately. "If the bringing of you from your world had fallen to me, Maskull, it is here I would have brought you, and not to the scarlet desert. Then you would have escaped the dark spots, and Tormance would have appeared beautiful to you."

"And what then, Gangnet? The dark spots would have existed all the same."

"You could have seen them afterward. It makes all the difference whether one sees darkness through the light, or brightness through the shadows."

"A clear eye is the best. Tormance is an ugly world, and I greatly prefer to know it as it really is."

"The devil made it ugly, not Crystalman. These are Crystalman's thoughts, which you see around you. He is nothing but Beauty and Pleasantness. Even Krag won't have the effrontery to deny that."

"It's very nice here," said Krag, looking around him malignantly. "One only wants a cushion and half a dozen houris to complete it."

Maskull disengaged himself from Gangnet. "Last night, when I was struggling through the mud in the ghastly moonlight - then I thought the world beautiful .

"Poor Sullenbode!" said Gangnet sighing.

"What! You knew her?"

"I know her through you. By mourning for a noble woman, you show your own nobility. I think all women are noble."

"There may be millions of noble women, but there's only one Sullenbode."

"If Sullenbode can exist," said Gangnet, "the world cannot be a bad place."

"Change the subject.... The world's hard and cruel, and I am thankful to be leaving it."

"On one point, though, you both agree," said Krag, smiling evilly. "Pleasure is good, and the cessation of pleasure is bad."

Gangnet glanced at him coldly. "We know your peculiar theories, Krag. You are very fond of them, but they are unworkable. The world could not go on being, without pleasure."

"So Gangnet thinks!" jeered Krag.

They came to the end of the wood, and found themselves overlooking a little cliff. At the foot of it, about fifty feet below, a fresh series of lakes and forests commenced. Barey appeared to be one big mountain slope, built by nature into terraces. The lake along whose border they had been travelling was not banked at the end, but overflowed to the lower level in half a dozen beautiful, threadlike falls, white and throwing off spray. The cliff was not perpendicular, and the men found it easy to negotiate.

At the base they entered another wood. Here it was much denser, and they had nothing but trees all around them. A clear brook rippled through the heart of it; they followed its bank.

"It has occurred to me," said Maskull, addressing Gangnet, "that Alppain may be my death. Is that so?"

"These trees don't fear Alppain, so why should you? Alppain is a wonderful, life-bringing sun."

"The reason I ask is - I've seen its afterglow, and it produced such violent sensations that a very little more would have proved too much."

"Because the forces were evenly balanced. When you see Alppain itself, it will reign supreme, and there will be no more struggling of wills inside you."

"And that, I may tell you beforehand, Maskull," said Krag, grinning, "is Crystalman's trump card."

"How do you mean?"

"You'll see. You'll renounce the world so eagerly that you'll want to stay in the world merely to enjoy your sensations."

Gangnet smiled. "Krag, you see, is hard to please. You must neither enjoy, nor renounce. What are you to do?"

Maskull turned toward Krag. "It's very odd, but I don't understand your creed even yet. Are you recommending suicide?"

Krag seemed to grow sallower and more repulsive every minute. "What, because they have left off stroking you?" he exclaimed, laughing and showing his discoloured teeth.

"Whoever you are, and whatever you want," said Maskull, "you seem very certain of yourself."

"Yes, you would like me to blush and stammer like a booby, wouldn't you! That would be an excellent way of destroying lies."

Gangnet glanced toward the foot of one of the trees. He stooped and picked up two or three objects that resembled eggs.

"To eat?" asked Maskull, accepting the offered gift.

"Yes, eat them; you must be hungry. I want none myself, and one mustn't insult Krag by offering him a pleasure - especially such a low pleasure."

Maskull knocked the ends off two of the eggs, and swallowed the liquid contents. They tasted rather alcoholic. Krag snatched the remaining, egg out of his hand and flung it against a tree trunk, where it broke and stuck, a splash of slime.

"I don't wait to be asked, Gangnet.... Say, is there a filthier sight than a smashed pleasure?"

Gangnet did not reply, but took Maskull's arm.

After they had alternately walked through forests and descended cliffs and slopes for upward of two hours, the landscape altered. A steep mountainside commenced and continued for at least a couple of miles, during which space the land must have dropped nearly four thousand feet, at a practically uniform gradient. Maskull had seen nothing like this immense slide of country anywhere. The hill slope carried an enormous forest on its back. This forest, however, was different from those they had hitherto passed through. The leaves of the trees were curled in sleep, but the boughs were so close and numerous that, but for the fact that they were translucent, the rays of the sun would have been completely intercepted. As it was, the whole forest was flooded with light, and this light, being tinged with the colour of the branches, was a soft and lovely rose. So gay, feminine, and dawnlike was the illumination, that Maskull's spirits immediately started to rise, although he did not wish it.

He checked himself, sighed, and grew pensive.

"What a place for languishing eyes and necks of ivory, Maskull!" rasped Krag mockingly. "Why isn't Sullenbode here?"

Maskull gripped him roughly and flung him against the nearest tree. Krag recovered himself, and burst into a roaring laugh, seeming not a whit discomposed.

"Still what I said - was it true or untrue?"

Maskull gazed at him sternly. "You seem to regard yourself as a necessary evil. I'm under no obligation to go on with you any farther. I think we had better part."