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He gritted his teeth, and kept quiet, but Oceaxe had not plotted the adventure to remain unconscious of his feelings. She looked around, with a golden, triumphant smile. "The ride will last some time, so hold on well!" Her voice was soft like a flute, but rather malicious. Maskull grinned, and said nothing. He dared not remove his arm. The shrowk straddled on to its legs.
The shrowk had hitherto been flying well above the ground; but now, when a new line of towering cliffs confronted them, Oceaxe did not urge the beast upward, but caused it to enter a narrow canyon, which intersected the mountains like a channel. They were instantly plunged into deep shade. The canal was not above thirty feet wide; the walls stretched upward on both sides for many hundred feet.
The leader still came toward them, but he fancied that its flight was altered in character; it was no longer menacing, but tame and unwilling. Oceaxe guided it with her will to the mainland shore opposite their island rock. Its vast bulk lay there extended, awaiting her pleasure. They immediately crossed the water. Maskull viewed the shrowk at close quarters. It was about thirty feet long.
The shrowk lay on its side, panting violently, and sweating with fright. "That was a nasty affair," said Maskull, flicking the dirt off his person. Oceaxe staunched a cut on her chin with a corner of her robe. "It might have been far worse.... I mean, it's bad enough to come up, but it's death to go down, and that happens just as often." "Whatever induces you to live in such a country?"
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 and dirt. All was thunder, instability, motion, confusion.
The shrowk slackened speed, and came to earth on the mainland, exactly at the gateway of the isthmus. They both descended Maskull with aching thighs. "What shall we do with the monster?" asked Oceaxe. Without waiting for a suggestion, she patted its hideous face with her hand. "Fly away home! I may want you some other time."
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