There was something enigmatic to him in those bright walls.  He was attracted by them, yet felt a sort of awe.  They looked real, but at the same time very supernatural.  If one could see the portrait of a ghost, painted with a hard, firm outline, in substantial colors, the feelings produced by such a sight would be exactly similar to Maskull’s impressions as he studied the Ifdawn precipices.

He broke the long silence.  “Those mountains have most extraordinary shapes.  All the lines are straight and perpendicular—­no slopes or curves.”

She walked backward on the water, in order to face him.  “That’s typical of Ifdawn.  Nature is all hammer blows with us.  Nothing soft and gradual.”

“I hear you, but I don’t understand you.”

“All over the Marest you’ll find patches of ground plunging down or rushing up.  Trees grow fast.  Women and men don’t think twice before acting.  One may call Ifdawn a place of quick decisions.”

Maskull was impressed.  “A fresh, wild, primitive land.”

“How is it where you come from?” asked Oceaxe.

“Oh, mine is a decrepit world, where nature takes a hundred years to move a foot of solid land.  Men and animals go about in flocks.  Originality is a lost habit.”

“Are there women there?”

“As with you, and not very differently formed.”

“Do they love?”

He laughed.  “So much so that it has changed the dress, speech, and thoughts of the whole sex.”

“Probably they are more beautiful than I?”

“No, I think not,” said Maskull.

There was another rather long silence, as they travelled unsteadily onward.

“What is your business in Ifdawn?” demanded Oceaxe suddenly.

He hesitated over his answer.  “Can you grasp that it’s possible to have an aim right in front of one, so big that one can’t see it as a whole?”

She stole a long, inquisitive look at him, “What sort of aim?”

“A moral aim.”

“Are you proposing to set the world right?”

“I propose nothing—­I am waiting.”

“Don’t wait too long, for time doesn’t wait—­especially in Ifdawn.”

“Something will happen,” said Maskull.

Oceaxe threw a subtle smile.  “So you have no special destination in the Marest?”

“No, and if you’ll permit me, I will come home with you.”

“Singular man!” she said, with a short, thrilling laugh.  “That’s what I have been offering all the time.  Of course you will come home with me.  As for Crimtyphon...”

“You mentioned that name before.  Who is he?”

“Oh!  My lover, or, as you would say, my husband.”

“This doesn’t improve matters,” said Maskull.

“It leaves them exactly where they were.  We merely have to remove him.”

“We are certainly misunderstanding each other,” said Maskull, quite startled.  “Do you by any chance imagine that I am making a compact with you?”