The sky immediately above the mountains was of a vivid, intense blue.  It contrasted in a most marvellous way with the blue of the rest of the heavens.  It seemed more luminous and radiant, and was in fact like the afterglow of a gorgeous blue sunset.

Maskull kept on looking.  The more he gazed, the more restless and noble became his feelings.

“What is that light?”

Panawe was sterner than usual, while his wife clung to his arm.  “It is Alppain—­our second sun,” he replied.  “Those hills are the Ifdawn Marest....  Now let us get to our shelter.”

“Is it imagination, or am I really being affected—­tormented by that light?”

“No, it’s not imagination—­it’s real.  How can it be otherwise when two suns, of different natures, are drawing you at the same time?  Luckily you are not looking at Alppain itself.  It’s invisible here.  You would need to go at least as far as Ifdawn, to set eyes on it.”

“Why do you say ’luckily’?”

“Because the agony caused by those opposing forces would perhaps be more than you could bear....  But I don’t know.”

For the short distance that remained of their walk, Maskull was very thoughtful and uneasy.  He understood nothing.  Whatever object his eye chanced to rest on changed immediately into a puzzle.  The silence and stillness of the mountain peak seemed brooding, mysterious, and waiting.  Panawe gave him a friendly, anxious look, and without further delay led the way down a little track, which traversed the side of the mountain and terminated in the mouth of a cave.

This cave was the home of Panawe and Joiwind.  It was dark inside.  The host took a shell and, filling it with liquid from a well, carelessly sprinkled the sandy floor of the interior.  A greenish, phosphorescent light gradually spread to the furthest limits of the cavern, and continued to illuminate it for the whole time they were there.  There was no furniture.  Some dried, fernlike leaves served for couches.

The moment she got in, Joiwind fell down in exhaustion.  Her husband tended her with calm concern.  He bathed her face, put drink to her lips, energised her with his magn, and finally laid her down to sleep.  At the sight of the noble woman thus suffering on his account, Maskull was distressed.

Panawe, however, endeavoured to reassure him.  “It’s quite true this has been a very long, hard double journey, but for the future it will lighten all her other journeys for her....  Such is the nature of sacrifice.”

“I can’t conceive how I have walked so far in a morning,” said Maskull, “and she has been twice the distance.”

“Love flows in her veins, instead of blood, and that’s why she is so strong.”

“You know she gave me some of it?”

“Otherwise you couldn’t even have started.”

“I shall never forget that.”

The languorous beat of the day outside, the bright mouth of the cavern, the cool seclusion of the interior, with its pale green glow, invited Maskull to sleep.  But curiosity got the better of his lassitude.