“How do you know this?”

“It has sprung together somehow—­from inspiration, from experience, from conversation with the wise men of your planet.  Every hour it grows truer for me and takes a more definite shape.”

Corpang stood up squarely, facing the three Figures with a harsh, energetic countenance, stamped all over with resolution.  “I believe you, Maskull.  No better proof is required than that.  Thire is not the highest; he is even in a certain sense the lowest.  Nothing but the thoroughly false and base could stoop to such deceits....  I am coming with you—­but don’t play the traitor.  These signs may be for you, and not for me at all, and if you leave me—­”

“I make no promises.  I don’t ask you to come with me.  If you prefer to stay in your little world, or if you have any doubts about it, you had better not come.”

“Don’t talk like that.  I shall never forget your service to me...  Let us make haste, or we shall lose the sound.”

Corpang started off more eagerly than Maskull.  They walked fast in the direction of the drumming.  For upward of two miles the path went along the ledge without any change of level.  The mysterious radiance gradually departed, and was replaced by the normal light of Threal.  The rhythmical beats continued, but a very long way ahead—­neither was able to diminish the distance.

“What kind of man are you?” Corpang suddenly broke out.

“In what respect?”

“How do you come to be on such terms with the Invisible?  How is it that I’ve never had this experience before I met you, in spite of my never-ending prayers and mortifications?  In what way are you superior to me?”

“To hear voices perhaps can’t be made a profession,” replied Maskull.  “I have a simple and unoccupied mind—­that may be why I sometimes hear things that up to the present you have not been able to.”

Corpang darkened, and kept silent; and then Maskull saw through to his pride.

The ledge presently began to rise.  They were high above the platform on the opposite side of the gulf.  The road then curved sharply to the right, and they passed over the abyss and the other ledge as by a bridge, coming out upon the top of the opposite cliffs.  A new line of precipices immediately confronted them.  They followed the drumming along the base of these heights, but as they were passing the mouth of a large cave the sound came from its recesses, and they turned their steps inward.

“This leads to the outer world,” remarked Corpang.  “I’ve occasionally been there by this passage.”

“Then that’s where it is taking us, no doubt.  I confess I shan’t be sorry to see sunlight once more.”

“Can you find time to think of sunlight?” asked Corpang with a rough smile.

“I love the sun, and perhaps I’m rather lacking in the spirit of a zealot.”

“Yet, for all that, you may get there before me.”