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Nightspore turned his back, but everyone else stared at the intruder in astonishment. He took another few steps forward, which brought him to the edge of the theatre. "May I ask, sir, how I come to have the honour of being your host?" asked Faull sullenly. He thought that the evening was not proceeding as smoothly as he had anticipated.
Nightspore could no longer see his companion. The water lapped gently against the side of the island raft. "You say the night is past," said Nightspore. "But the night is still here. Am I dead, or alive?" "You are still in Crystalman's world, but you belong to it no more. We are approaching Muspel." Nightspore felt a strong, silent throbbing of the air a rhythmical pulsation, in four-four time.
Suddenly, from out-of-doors, there came a single prolonged, piercing wail, such as a banshee might be imagined to utter. It ceased abruptly, and was not repeated. "What's that?" called out Maskull, disengaging himself impatiently from Krag. Krag rocked with laughter. "A Scottish spirit trying to reproduce the bagpipes of its earth life in honour of our departure." Nightspore turned to Krag.
"You are still stupid with Earth fumes, and see nothing straight," said Krag. Nightspore made no reply, but seemed to be trying to recall something. The water around them was so still, colourless, and transparent, that they scarcely seemed to be borne up by liquid matter at all. Maskull's corpse had disappeared. The drumming was now like the clanging of iron.
Maskull smiled, but his eyes were grave. "Then we are looking at the gateway of Arcturus, and Krag is now travelling north to unlock it." "You no longer think it impossible, I fancy," mumbled Nightspore. After a mile or two, the road parted from the sea coast and swerved sharply inland, across the hills. With Nightspore as guide, they left it and took to the grass.
He opened his eyes. The floating island was still faintly illuminated by Alppain. Krag was standing by his side, but Gangnet was no longer there. "What is this Ocean called?" asked Maskull, bringing out the words with difficulty. "Surtur's Ocean." Maskull nodded, and kept quiet for some time. He rested his face on his arm. "Where's Nightspore?" he asked suddenly.
But the library, like all the other rooms, was foul with stale air and dust-laden. Maskull, having flung the window up and down, fell heavily into an armchair and looked disgustedly at his friend. "Now what is your opinion of Krag?" Nightspore sat on the edge of the table which stood before the window. "He may still have left a message for us." "What message? Why? Do you mean in this room?
Before doing so, Maskull gazed sternly once again at the gigantic, far-distant star, which was to be their sun from now onward. He frowned, shivered slightly, and got in beside Nightspore. Krag clambered past them onto his pilot's seat. He threw the flashlight through the open door, which was then carefully closed, fastened, and screwed up. He pulled the starting lever.
At every frightful beat of sound, he quivered violently. The entrance was doorless. Krag jumped onto the rocky platform and pulled Nightspore after him. Once through the gateway, the light vanished. The rhythmical sound blows totally ceased. Nightspore dropped his hands.... All was dark and quiet as an opened tomb.
The climb continued, and at the second and third windows he again mounted and stared out, but still the common sights presented themselves. After that, he gave up and looked through no more windows. Krag and Nightspore meanwhile had gone on ahead with the light, so that he had to complete the ascent in darkness.
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