“While it’s cooking, I’ll wash some of this blood away, which frightens you so much.  Have you never seen blood before?”

Maskull gazed at her in perplexity.  The old paradox came back—­the contrasting sexual characteristics in her person.  Her bold, masterful, masculine egotism of manner seemed quite incongruous with the fascinating and disturbing femininity of her voice.  A startling idea flashed into his mind.

“In your country I’m told there is an act of will called ‘absorbing.’  What is that?”

She held her red, dripping hands away from her draperies, and uttered a delicious, clashing laugh.  “You think I am half a man?”

“Answer my question.”

“I’m a woman through and through, Maskull—­to the marrowbone.  But that’s not to say I have never absorbed males.”

“And that means...”

“New strings for my harp, Maskull.  A wider range of passions, a stormier heart...”

“For you, yes—­But for them?...”

“I don’t know.  The victims don’t describe their experiences.  Probably unhappiness of some sort—­if they still know anything.”

“This is a fearful business!” he exclaimed, regarding her gloomily.  “One would think Ifdawn a land of devils.”

Oceaxe gave a beautiful sneer as she took a step toward the river.  “Better men than you—­better in every sense of the word—­are walking about with foreign wills inside them.  You may be as moral as you like, Maskull, but the fact remains, animals were made to be eaten, and simple natures were made to be absorbed.”

“And human rights count for nothing!”

She had bent over the river’s edge, to wash her arms and hands, but glanced up over her shoulder to answer his remark.  “They do count.  But we only regard a man as human for just as long as he’s able to hold his own with others.”

The flesh was soon cooked, and they breakfasted in silence.  Maskull cast heavy, doubtful glances from time to time toward his companion.  Whether it was due to the strange quality of the food, or to his long abstention, he did not know, but the meal tasted nauseous, and even cannibalistic.  He ate little, and the moment he got up he felt defiled.

“Let me bury this drude, where I can find it some other time,” said Oceaxe.  “On the next occasion, though, I shall have no Maskull with me, to shock....  Now we have to take to the river.”

They stepped off the land onto the water.  It flowed against them with a sluggish current, but the opposition, instead of hindering them, had the contrary effect—­it caused them to exert themselves, and they moved faster.  They climbed the river in this way for several miles.  The exercise gradually improved the circulation of Maskull’s blood, and he began to look at things in a far more way.  The hot sunshine, the diminished wind, the cheerful marvellous cloud scenery, the quiet, crystal forests—­all was soothing and delightful.  They approached nearer and nearer to the gaily painted heights of Ifdawn.