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"Who can doubt now that our death is close at hand?" said Tydomin. "I have been close to death twice today. The first time I was ready, but now I am more ready, for I shall die side by side with the man who has given me my first happiness." "Do not think of death, but of right persistence," replied Spadevil. "I am not here to tremble before Shaping's portents; but to snatch men from him."
Catice said to Maskull, "Prove your sincerity. Kill this man and his mistress, according to the laws of Hator." "I can't do that. I have travelled in friendship with them." "You denied duty; and now you must do your duty," said Spadevil, calmly stroking his beard. "Whatever law you accept, You must obey, without turning to right or left.
"We may drop the torch, but it will not be extinguished, and others will raise it." "Show me a sign that you are not as other men so that I may know that our blood will not be wasted." Spadevil regarded her sternly. "I am not a magician. I don't persuade the senses, but the soul. Does your duty call you to Sant, Tydomin? Then go there. Does it not call you to Sant? Then go no farther.
"We have a long way to go," said Tydomin. "Relate some of these legends, Spadevil." The snow had ceased, the day brightened, Branchspell reappeared like a phantom sun, but bitter blasts of wind still swept over the plain. "In those days," said Spadevil, "there existed in Ifdawn a mountain island separated by wide spaces from the land around it.
"The old skin is cracking, the new skin has been silently forming underneath, the moment of sloughing has arrived." The storm gathered. The green snow drove against them, as they stood talking, and it grew intensely cold. None noticed it. "What is your name?" asked Maskull, with a beating heart. "My name, Maskull, is Spadevil.
He stopped, and stared hard at her. "I now see straight," he said slowly. "What does that mean?" He continued to wipe the blood from his forehead. He looked troubled. "Henceforward, as long as I live, I shall fight with my nature, and refuse to feel pleasure. And I advise you to do the same." Spadevil gazed at him sternly. "Do you renounce my teaching?"
Sleep here tonight, Spadevil, and in the morning go back to where you have come from. No one shall harm you." Spadevil's ironic smile was lost in the gloom. "Shall I brood again, Maskull, for still another year, and after that come back to Sant with other truths? Come, waste no time, but choose the heavier stone for me, for I am stronger than Tydomin."
"At this moment the world with its sweetness seems to me a sort of charnel house. I feel a loathing for everything in it, including myself. I know no more." "Is there no duty?" asked Spadevil, in a harsh tone. "It appears to me but a cloak under which we share the pleasure of other people." Tydomin pulled at Spadevil's arm. "Maskull has betrayed you, as he has so many others. Let us go."
"The truth is simple, even for the simplest man." "Do you destroy Hator, and all his generations, with a single word?" "I destroy nature, and set up law." A long silence followed. "My probe is double," said Spadevil. "Suffer me to double yours, and you will see as I see." "Come you here, you big man!" said Catice to Maskull. Maskull advanced a step closer.
When Branchspell, however, shone out again, though with subdued power, Maskull's curiosity rose once more. "Your fellow countrymen, then, Spadevil, are sick with self-love?" "The men of other countries," said Spadevil, "are the slaves of pleasure and desire, knowing it. But the men of my country are the slaves of pleasure and desire, not knowing it."
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