a quarter of a mile distant.

Joiwind had brought with her a small flint knife. Without any trace of
nervousness, she made a careful, deep incision on her upper arm. Maskull
expostulated.

"Really, this part of it is nothing," she said, laughing. "And if it
were--a sacrifice that is no sacrifice--what merit is there in that?...
Come now--your arm!"

The blood was streaming down her arm. It was not red blood, but a milky,
opalescent fluid.

"Not that one!" said Maskull, shrinking. "I have already been cut
there." He submitted the other, and his blood poured forth.

Joiwind delicately and skilfully placed the mouths of the two wounds
together, and then kept her arm pressed tightly against Maskull's for
a long time. He felt a stream of pleasure entering his body through the
incision. His old lightness and vigour began to return to him. After
about five minutes a duel of kindness started between them; he wanted to
remove his arm, and she to continue. At last he had his way, but it was
none too soon--she stood there pale and dispirited.

She looked at him with a more serious expression than before, as if
strange depths had opened up before her eyes.

"What is your name?"

"Maskull."

"Where have you come from, with this awful blood?"

"From a world called Earth.... The blood is clearly unsuitable for this
world, Joiwind, but after all, that was only to be expected. I am sorry
I let you have your way."

"Oh, don't say that! There was nothing else to be done. We must all help
one another. Yet, somehow--forgive me--I feel polluted."

"And well you may, for it's a fearful thing for a girl to accept in her
own veins the blood of a strange man from a strange planet. If I had not
been so dazed and weak I would never have allowed it."

"But I would have insisted. Are we not all brothers and sisters? Why did
you come here, Maskull?"

He was conscious of a slight degree of embarrassment. "Will you think
it foolish if I say I hardly know?--I came with those two men. Perhaps I
was attracted by curiosity, or perhaps it was the love of adventure."

"Perhaps," said Joiwind. "I wonder... These friends of yours must be
terrible men. Why did they come?"

"That I can tell you. They came to follow Surtur."

Her face grew troubled. "I don't understand it. One of them at least
must be a bad man, and yet if he is following Surtur--or Shaping, as he
is called here--he can't be really bad."

"What do you know of Surtur?" asked