well if we have some way to walk. I shall grow calmer,
and that's what I want. I wish you to understand that what is going to
happen is not a murder, but an execution."

"It will taste the same," said Tydomin.

"When I have gone out of this country, I don't wish to feel that I have
left a demon behind me, wandering at large. That would not be fair to
others. So we will go to the lake, which promises an easy death for
you."

She shrugged her shoulders. "We must wait till Blodsombre is over."

"Is this a time for luxurious feelings? However hot it is now, we will
both be cool by evening. We must start at once."

"Without doubt, you are the master, Maskull.... May I not carry
Crimtyphon?"

Maskull looked at her strangely.

"I grudge no man his funeral."

She painfully hoisted the body on her narrow shoulders, and they stepped
out into the sunlight. The heat struck them like a blow on the head.
Maskull moved aside, to allow her to precede him, but no compassion
entered his heart. He brooded over the wrongs the woman had done him.

The way went along the south side of the great pyramid, near its base.
It was a rough road, clogged with boulders and crossed by cracks and
water gullies; they could see the water, but could not get at it. There
was no shade. Blisters formed on their skin, while all the water in
their blood seemed to dry up.

Maskull forgot his own tortures in his devil's delight at Tydomin's.
"Sing me a song!" he called out presently. "A characteristic one."

She turned her head and gave him a long, peculiar look; then, without
any sort of expostulation, started singing. Her voice was low and weird.
The song was so extraordinary that he had to rub his eyes to ascertain
whether he was awake or dreaming. The slow surprises of the grotesque
melody began to agitate him in a horrible fashion; the words were pure
nonsense--or else their significance was too deep for him.

"Where, in the name of all unholy things, did you acquire that stuff,
woman?"

Tydomin shed a sickly smile, while the corpse swayed about with ghastly
jerks over her left shoulder. She held it in position with her two left
arms. "It's a pity we could not have met as friends, Maskull. I could
have shown you a side of Tormance which now perhaps you will never see.
The wild, mad, side. But now it's too late, and it doesn't matter."

They turned the angle of the mountain, and started to traverse the
western base.

"Which is the quickes