Another remarkable plant was a large, feathery ball, resembling a dandelion fruit, which they encountered sailing through the air.  Joiwind caught it with an exceedingly graceful movement of her arm, and showed it to Maskull.  It had roots and presumably lived in the air and fed on the chemical constituents of the atmosphere.  But what was peculiar about it was its colour.  It was an entirely new colour—­ not a new shade or combination, but a new primary colour, as vivid as blue, red, or yellow, but quite different.  When he inquired, she told him that it was known as “ulfire.”  Presently he met with a second new colour.  This she designated “jale.”  The sense impressions caused in Maskull by these two additional primary colors can only be vaguely hinted at by analogy.  Just as blue is delicate and mysterious, yellow clear and unsubtle, and red sanguine and passionate, so he felt ulfire to be wild and painful, and jale dreamlike, feverish, and voluptuous.

The hills were composed of a rich, dark mould.  Small trees, of weird shapes, all differing from each other, but all purple-coloured, covered the slopes and top.  Maskull and Joiwind climbed up and through.  Some hard fruit, bright blue in colour, of the size of a large apple, and shaped like an egg, was lying in profusion underneath the trees.

“Is the fruit here poisonous, or why don’t you eat it?” asked Maskull.

She looked at him tranquilly.  “We don’t eat living things.  The thought is horrible to us.”

“I have nothing to say against that, theoretically.  But do you really sustain your bodies on water?”

“Supposing you could find nothing else to live on, Maskull—­would you eat other men?”

“I would not.”

“Neither will we eat plants and animals, which are our fellow creatures.  So nothing is left to us but water, and as one can really live on anything, water does very well.”

Maskull picked up one of the fruits and handled it curiously.  As he did so another of his newly acquired sense organs came into action.  He found that the fleshy knobs beneath his ears were in some novel fashion acquainting him with the inward properties of the fruit.  He could not only see, feel, and smell it, but could detect its intrinsic nature.  This nature was hard, persistent and melancholy.

Joiwind answered the questions he had not asked.

“Those organs are called ‘poigns.’  Their use is to enable us to understand and sympathise with all living creatures.”

“What advantage do you derive from that, Joiwind?”

“The advantage of not being cruel and selfish, dear Maskull.”

He threw the fruit away and flushed again.

Joiwind looked into his swarthy, bearded face without embarrassment and slowly smiled.  “Have I said too much?  Have I been too familiar?  Do you know why you think so?  It’s because you are still impure.  By and by you will listen to all language without shame.”