so hard put to it that I have to hunt for lovers? Is not
Crimtyphon waiting for me at this very moment?"

"Very well. I am sorry to have hurt your feelings. Now carry the
temptation no farther--for it is a temptation, where a lovely woman is
concerned. I am not my own master."

"I'm not proposing anything so very hateful, am I? Why do you humiliate
me so?"

Maskull put his hands behind his back. "I repeat, I am not my own
master."

"Then who is your master?"

"Yesterday I saw Surtur, and from today I am serving him."

"Did you speak with him?" she asked curiously.

"I did."

"Tell me what he said."

"No, I can't--I won't. But whatever he said, his beauty was more
tormenting than yours, Oceaxe, and that's why I can look at you in cold
blood."

"Did Surtur forbid you to be a man?"

Maskull frowned. "Is love such a manly sport, then? I should have
thought it effeminate."

"It doesn't matter. You won't always be so boyish. But don't try my
patience too far."

"Let us talk about something else--and, above all, let us get on our
road."

She suddenly broke into a laugh, so rich, sweet, and enchanting, that he
grew half inflamed, and half wished to catch her body in his arms. "Oh,
Maskull, Maskull--what a fool you are!"

"In what way am I a fool?" he demanded, scowling not at her words, but
at his own weakness.

"Isn't the whole world the handiwork of innumerable pairs of lovers? And
yet you think yourself above all that. You try to fly away from nature,
but where will you find a hole to hide yourself in?"

"Besides beauty, I now credit you with a second quality: persistence."

"Read me well, and then it is natural law that you'll think twice and
three times before throwing me away.... And now, before we go, we had
better eat."

"Eat?" said Maskull thoughtfully.

"Don't you eat? Is food in the same category as love?"

"What food is it?"

"Fish from the river."

Maskull recollected his promise to Joiwind. At the same time, he felt
hungry.

"Is there nothing milder?"

She pulled her mouth scornfully. "You came through Poolingdred, didn't
you? All the people there are the same. They think life is to be looked
at, and not lived. Now that you are visiting Ifdawn, you will have to
change your notions."

"Go catch your fish," he returned, pulling down his brows.

The broad, clear waters flowed past them with swelling undulations,
from the direction of the mountains. Oceaxe knelt down on the bank,