“Then let us go.”  He pressed his eyeballs wearily.

“Do we strip?” asked Nightspore.

“Naturally,” answered Krag, and he began to tear off his clothes with slow, uncouth movements.

“Why?” demanded Maskull, following, however, the example of the other two men.

Krag thumped his vast chest, which was covered with thick hairs, like an ape’s.  “Who knows what the Tormance fashions are like?  We may sprout limbs—­I don’t say we shall.”

“A-ha!” exclaimed Maskull, pausing in the middle of his undressing.

Krag smote him on the back.  “New pleasure organs possible, Maskull.  You like that?”

The three men stood as nature made them.  Maskull’s spirits rose fast, as the moment of departure drew near.

“A farewell drink to success!” cried Krag, seizing a bottle and breaking its head off between his fingers.  There were no glasses, but he poured the amber-coloured wine into some cracked cups.

Perceiving that the others drank, Maskull tossed off his cupful.  It was as if he had swallowed a draught of liquid electricity....  Krag dropped onto the floor and rolled around on his back, kicking his legs in the air.  He tried to drag Maskull down on top of him, and a little horseplay went on between the two.  Nightspore took no part in it, but walked to and fro, like a hungry caged animal.

Suddenly, from out-of-doors, there came a single prolonged, piercing wail, such as a banshee might be imagined to utter.  It ceased abruptly, and was not repeated.

“What’s that?” called out Maskull, disengaging himself impatiently from Krag.

Krag rocked with laughter.  “A Scottish spirit trying to reproduce the bagpipes of its earth life—­in honour of our departure.”

Nightspore turned to Krag.  “Maskull will sleep throughout the journey?”

“And you too, if you wish, my altruistic friend.  I am pilot, and you passengers can amuse yourselves as you please.”

“Are we off at last?” asked Maskull.

“Yes, you are about to cross your Rubicon, Maskull.  But what a Rubicon! ...  Do you know that it takes light a hundred years or so to arrive here from Arcturus?  Yet we shall do it in nineteen hours.”

“Then you assert that Surtur is already there?”

“Surtur is where he is.  He is a great traveller.”

“Won’t I see him?”

Krag went up to him and looked him in the eyes.  “Don’t forget that you have asked for it, and wanted it.  Few people in Tormance will know more about him than you do, but your memory will be your worst friend.”

He led the way up a short iron ladder, mounting through a trap to the flat roof above.  When they were up, he switched on a small electric torch.

Maskull beheld with awe the torpedo of crystal that was to convey them through the whole breadth of visible space.  It was forty feet long, eight wide, and eight high; the tank containing the Arcturian back rays was in front, the car behind.  The nose of the torpedo was directed toward the south-eastern sky.  The whole machine rested upon a flat platform, raised about four feet above the level of the roof, so as to encounter no obstruction on starting its flight.