ounded out of the gloom. "Shall we go down and see?"

"You find that amusing?"

"No, not that. What I do find amusing is the big stranger with the
beard, who is so keenly interested in everything except himself."

Maskull then laughed too. "I happen to be the only thing in Tormance
which is not a novelty for me."

"Yes, but I am a novelty for you."

The channel went zigzagging its way through the belly of the mountain,
and all the time they were gradually rising.

"At least I have heard nothing like your voice before," said Maskull,
who, since he had no longer anything to look at, was at last ready for
conversation.

"What's the matter with my voice?"

"It's all that I can distinguish of you now; that's why I mentioned it."

"Isn't it clear--don't I speak distinctly?"

"Oh, it's clear enough, but--it's inappropriate."

"Inappropriate?"

"I won't explain further," said Maskull, "but whether you are speaking
or laughing, your voice is by far the loveliest and strangest instrument
I have ever listened to. And yet I repeat, it is inappropriate."

"You mean that my nature doesn't correspond?"

He was just considering his reply, when their talk was abruptly broken
off by a huge and terrifying, but not very loud sound rising up from the
gulf directly underneath them. It was a low, grinding, roaring thunder.

"The ground is rising under us!" cried Oceaxe.

"Shall we escape?"

She made no answer, but urged the shrowk's flight upward, at such a
steep gradient that they retained their seats with difficulty. The floor
of the canyon, upheaved by some mighty subterranean force, could be
heard, and almost felt, coming up after them, like a gigantic landslip
in the wrong direction. The cliffs cracked, and fragments began to fall.
A hundred awful noises filled the air, growing louder and louder each
second--splitting, hissing, cracking, grinding, booming, exploding,
roaring. When they had still fifty feet or so to go, to reach the top,
a sort of dark, indefinite sea of broken rocks and soil appeared under
their feet, ascending rapidly, with irresistible might, accompanied by
the most horrible noises. The canal was filled up for two hundred yards,
before and behind them. Millions of tons of solid matter seemed to be
raised. The shrowk in its ascent was caught by the uplifted debris.
Beast and riders experienced in that moment all the horrors of an
earthquake--they were rolled violently over, and thrown among the rocks