Maskull
was struck to silence. He was hardly so much looking, as feeling. His
emotions were unutterable. His soul seemed too strong for his body. The
great blue orb rose rapidly out of the water, like an awful eye watching
him.... it shot above the sea with a bound, and Alppain's day commenced.

"What do you feel?" Gangnet still held his arm.

"I have set myself against the Infinite," muttered Maskull.

Suddenly his chaos of passions sprang together, and a wonderful idea
swept through his whole being, accompanied by the intensest joy.

"Why, Gangnet--I am nothing."

"No, you are nothing."

The mist closed in all around them. Nothing was visible except the
two suns, and a few feet of sea. The shadows of the three men cast by
Alppain were not black, but were composed of white daylight.

"Then nothing can hurt me," said Maskull with a peculiar smile.

Gangnet smiled too. "How could it?"

"I have lost my will; I feel as if some foul tumour had been scraped
away, leaving me clean and free."

"Do you now understand life, Maskull?"

Gangnet's face was transfigured with an extraordinary spiritual beauty;
he looked as if he had descended from heaven.

"I understand nothing, except that I have no self any more. But this is
life."

"Is Gangnet expatiating on his famous blue sun?" said a jeering voice
above them. Looking up, they saw that Krag had got to his feet.

They both rose. At the same moment the gathering mist began to obscure
Alppain's disk, changing it from blue to a vivid jale.

"What do you want with us, Krag?" asked Maskull with simple composure.

Krag looked at him strangely for a few seconds. The water lapped around
them.

"Don't you comprehend, Maskull, that your death has arrived?"

Maskull made no response. Krag rested an arm lightly on his shoulder,
and suddenly he felt sick and faint. He sank to the ground, near the
edge of the island raft. His heart was thumping heavily and queerly;
its beating reminded him of the drum taps. He gazed languidly at the
rippling water, and it seemed to him as if he could see right through
it... away, away down... to a strange fire....

The water disappeared. The two suns were extinguished. The island was
transformed into a cloud, and Maskull--alone on it--was floating through
the atmosphere.... Down below, it was all fire--the fire of Muspel. The
light mounted higher and higher, until it filled the whole world....

He floated toward an immense perpendicula