"You'll never come back at all."
In spite of his normal imperturbability, Laurence was conscious of a quickening of the pulses. The suggestion of adventure—of an adventure on a magnificent scale, and with magnificent results if successful, as conveyed in the other's reply, caused the blood to surge hotly through his frame. He had been strangely drawn towards this dark, reticent, solitary individual, beneath whose quiet demeanour lurked such a suggestion of force and power, who shunned the friendship of all even as all shunned his, who had been moderately intimate even with none but himself. This wonderful land—the dim, mysterious recesses of its interior—what possibilities did it not hold? And in groping into such possibilities this, above all others, was the comrade he would have chosen to have at his side. Not that he had forgotten the words of dark warning spoken by Rainsford and others, but at such he laughed.
"Are you taking it on any?" queried Hazon, after a pause of silence on the part of both.
"I am. I don't mind telling you, Hazon, that life, so far as I am concerned, was no great thing before."
"I guessed as much," assented the other, with a nod of the head.
"Quite. Now, I'm broke, stony broke, and it's more than ever a case of stealing away to hang one's self in a well. I tell you squarely, I'd walk into the jaws of the devil himself to effect the capture of the oof-bird."
"Yes? How are your nerves, Stanninghame?"
"Hard—hard as nails now. That's not to say they have been always."
"Quite so. Ever seen a man's head cut off?"
"Two."