He looked aloft and saw that the main stem was thick to the very top, terminating in a knob that somewhat resembled a human head.  He made his way toward this knob, through the multitude of boughs, which were covered with tough, slippery, marine leaves, like seaweed.  Arriving at the crown, he found that it actually was a sort of head, for there were membranes like rudimentary eyes all the way around it, denoting some form of low intelligence.

At that moment the tree touched bottom, though some way from the shore, and began to bump heavily.  To steady himself, Maskull put his hand out, and, in doing so, accidentally covered some of the membranes.  The tree sheered off the land, as if by an act of will.  When it was steady again, Maskull removed his hand; they at once drifted back to shore.  He thought a bit, and then started experimenting with the eyelike membranes.  It was as he had guessed—­ these eyes were stimulated by the light of the moon, and whichever way the light came from, the tree would travel.

A rather defiant smile crossed Maskull’s face as it struck him that it might be possible to navigate this huge plant-animal as far as Matterplay.  He lost no time in putting the conception into execution.  Tearing off some of the long, tough leaves, he bound up all the membranes except the ones that faced the north.  The tree instantly left the island, and definitely put out to sea.  It travelled due north.  It was not moving at more than a mile an hour, however, while Matterplay was possibly forty miles distant.

The great spout waves fell against the trunk with mighty thuds; the breaking seas hissed through the lower branches—­Maskull rested high and dry, but was more than a little apprehensive about their slow rate of progress.  Presently he sighted a current racing along toward the north-west, and that put another idea into his head.  He began to juggle with the membranes again, and before long had succeeded in piloting his tree into the fast-running stream.  As soon as they were fairly in its rapids, he blinded the crown entirely, and thenceforward the current acted in the double capacity of road and steed.

Maskull made himself secure among the branches and slept for the remainder of the night.

When his eyes opened again, the island was out of sight.  Teargeld was setting in the western sea.  The sky in the east was bright with the colours of the approaching day.  The air was cool and fresh; the light over the sea was beautiful, gleaming, and mysterious.  Land—­ probably Matterplay—­lay ahead, a long, dark line of low cliffs, perhaps a mile away.  The current no longer ran toward the shore, but began to skirt the coast without drawing any closer to it.  As soon as Maskull realised the fact, he manoeuvred the tree out of its channel and started drifting it inshore.  The eastern sky blazed up suddenly with violent dyes, and the outer rim of Branchspell lifted itself above the sea.  The moon had already sunk.