“Adieu, then, Panawe!  But do you wish to say anything more to me?”

“Only this, Maskull—­wherever you go, help to make the world beautiful, and not ugly.”

“That’s more than any of us can undertake.  I am a simple man, and have no ambitions in the way of beautifying life—­But tell Joiwind I will try to keep myself pure.”

They parted rather coldly.  Maskull stood erect where they had stopped, and watched Panawe out of sight.  He sighed more than once.

He became aware that something was about to happen.  The air was breathless.  The late-afternoon sunshine, unobstructed, wrapped his frame in voluptuous heat.  A solitary cloud, immensely high, raced through the sky overhead.

A single trumpet note sounded in the far distance from somewhere behind him.  It gave him an impression of being several miles away at first; but then it slowly swelled, and came nearer and nearer at the same time that it increased in volume.  Still the same note sounded, but now it was as if blown by a giant trumpeter immediately over his head.  Then it gradually diminished in force, and travelled away in front of him.  It ended very faintly and distantly.

He felt himself alone with Nature.  A sacred stillness came over his heart.  Past and future were forgotten.  The forest, the sun, the day did not exist for him.  He was unconscious of himself—­he had no thoughts and no feelings.  Yet never had Life had such an altitude for him.

A man stood, with crossed arms, right in his path.  He was so clothed that his limbs were exposed, while his body was covered.  He was young rather than old.  Maskull observed that his countenance possessed none of the special organs of Tormance, to which he had not even yet become reconciled.  He was smooth-faced.  His whole person seemed to radiate an excess of life, like the trembling of air on a hot day.  His eyes had such force that Maskull could not meet them.

He addressed Maskull by name, in an extraordinary voice.  It had a double tone.  The primary one sounded far away; the second was an undertone, like a sympathetic tanging string.

Maskull felt a rising joy, as he continued standing in the presence of this individual.  He believed that something good was happening to him.  He found it physically difficult to bring any words out.  “Why do you stop me?”

“Maskull, look well at me.  Who am I?”

“I think you are Shaping.”

“I am Surtur.”

Maskull again attempted to meet his eyes, but felt as if he were being stabbed.

“You know that this is my world.  Why do you think I have brought you here?  I wish you to serve me.”

Maskull could no longer speak.

“Those who joke at my world,” continued the vision, “those who make a mock of its stern, eternal rhythm, its beauty and sublimity, which are not skin-deep, but proceed from fathomless roots—­they shall not escape.”