“According to Panawe and Catice, this forest contains wise men.  Perhaps Dreamsinter was one.  Perhaps that vision I have just seen was a specimen of his wisdom.  It looked almost like an answer to my question....  I ought not to have asked about myself, but about Surtur.  Then I would have got a different answer.  I might have learned something...  I might have seen him.”

He remained quiet and apathetic for a bit.

“But I couldn’t face that awful glare,” he proceeded.  “It was bursting my body.  He warned me, too.  And so Surtur does really exist, and my journey stands for something.  But why am I here, and what can I do?  Who is Surtur?  Where is he to be found?”

Something wild came into his eyes.

“What did Dreamsinter mean by his ‘Not you, but Nightspore’?  Am I a secondary character—­is he regarded as important; and I as unimportant?  Where is Nightspore, and what is he doing?  Am I to wait for his time and pleasure—­can I originate nothing?”

He continued sitting up, with straight-extended legs.

“I must make up my mind that this is a strange journey, and that the strangest things will happen in it.  It’s no use making plans, for I can’t see two steps ahead—­everything is unknown.  But one thing’s evident:  nothing but the wildest audacity will carry me through, and I must sacrifice everything else to that.  And therefore if Surtur shows himself again, I shall go forward to meet him, even if it means death.”

Through the black, quiet aisles of the forest the drum beats came again.  The sound was a long way off and very faint.  It was like the last mutterings of thunder after a heavy storm.  Maskull listened, without getting up.  The drumming faded into silence, and did not return.

He smiled queerly, and said aloud, “Thanks, Surtur!  I accept the omen.”

When he was about to get up, he found that the shrivelled skin that had been his third arm was flapping disconcertingly with every movement of his body.  He made perforations in it all around, as close to his chest as possible, with the fingernails of both hands; then he carefully twisted it off.  In that world of rapid growth and ungrowth he judged that the stump would soon disappear.  After that, he rose and peered into the darkness.

The forest at that point sloped rather steeply and, without thinking twice about it, he took the downhill direction, never doubting it would bring him somewhere.  As soon as he started walking, his temper became gloomy and morose—­he was shaken, tired, dirty, and languid with hunger; moreover, he realised that the walk was not going to be a short one.  Be that as it may, he determined to sit down no more until the whole dismal forest was at his back.