ly hot. Then he returned to Polecrab.

In the warm, still air and cheerful shade of the inlet, they munched in
silence, looking from their food to the sluggish water, and back again.
With every mouthful Maskull felt his strength returning. He finished
before Polecrab, who ate like a man for whom time has no value. When he
had done, he stood up.

"Come and drink," he said, in his husky voice.

Maskull looked at him inquiringly.

The man led him a little way into the forest, and walked straight up
to a certain tree. At a convenient height in its trunk a hole had been
tapped and plugged. Polecrab removed the plug and put his mouth to the
aperture, sucking for quite a long time, like a child at its mother's
breast. Maskull, watching him, imagined that he saw his eyes growing
brighter.

When his own turn came to drink, he found the juice of the tree somewhat
like coconut milk in flavour, but intoxicating. It was a new sort
of intoxication, however, for neither his will not his emotions were
excited, but only his intellect--and that only in a certain way. His
thoughts and images were not freed and loosened, but on the contrary
kept labouring and swelling painfully, until they reached the full
beauty of an aperu{sic}, which would then flame up in his consciousness,
burst, and vanish. After that, the whole process started over again. But
there was never a moment when he was not perfectly cool, and master of
his senses. When each had drunk twice, Polecrab replugged the hole, and
they returned to their bank.

"Is it Blodsombre yet?" asked Maskull, sprawling on the ground, well
content.

Polecrab resumed his old upright sitting posture, with his feet in the
water. "Just beginning," was his hoarse response.

"Then I must stay here till it's over.... Shall we talk?"

"We can," said the other, without enthusiasm.

Maskull glanced at him through half-closed lids, wondering if he were
exactly what he seemed to be. In his eyes he thought he detected a wise
light.

"Have you travelled much, Polecrab?"

"Not what you would call travelling."

"You tell me you've been to Matterplay--what kind of country is that?"

"I don't know. I went there to pick up flints."

"What countries lie beyond it?"

"Threal comes next, as you go north. They say it's a land of mystics...
I don't know."

"Mystics?"

"So I'm told.... Still farther north there's Lichstorm."

"Now we're going far afield."

"There are mountains there--and al