ance.

"What kind of man are you?" Corpang suddenly broke out.

"In what respect?"

"How do you come to be on such terms with the Invisible? How is it
that I've never had this experience before I met you, in spite of my
never-ending prayers and mortifications? In what way are you superior to
me?"

"To hear voices perhaps can't be made a profession," replied Maskull.
"I have a simple and unoccupied mind--that may be why I sometimes hear
things that up to the present you have not been able to."

Corpang darkened, and kept silent; and then Maskull saw through to his
pride.

The ledge presently began to rise. They were high above the platform
on the opposite side of the gulf. The road then curved sharply to
the right, and they passed over the abyss and the other ledge as by a
bridge, coming out upon the top of the opposite cliffs. A new line of
precipices immediately confronted them. They followed the drumming along
the base of these heights, but as they were passing the mouth of a
large cave the sound came from its recesses, and they turned their steps
inward.

"This leads to the outer world," remarked Corpang. "I've occasionally
been there by this passage."

"Then that's where it is taking us, no doubt. I confess I shan't be
sorry to see sunlight once more."

"Can you find time to think of sunlight?" asked Corpang with a rough
smile.

"I love the sun, and perhaps I'm rather lacking in the spirit of a
zealot."

"Yet, for all that, you may get there before me."

"Don't be bitter," said Maskull. "I'll tell you another thing. Muspel
can't be willed, for the simple reason that Muspel does not concern the
will. To will is a property of this world."

"Then what is your journey for?"

"It's one thing to walk to a destination, and to linger over the walk,
and quite another to run there at top speed."

"Perhaps I'm not so easily deceived as you think," said Corpang with
another smile.

The light persisted in the cave. The path narrowed and became a steep
ascent. Then the angle became one of forty-five degrees, and they had
to climb. The tunnel grew so confined that Maskull was reminded of the
confined dreams of his childhood.

Not long afterward, daylight appeared. They hastened to complete the
last stage. Maskull rushed out first into the world of colours and,
all dirty and bleeding from numerous scratches, stood blinking on a
hillside, bathed in the brilliant late-afternoon sunshine. Corpang
followed clos