“Do not fear change and destruction; but laughter and joy.”
Maskull meditated.
“Tell me, Catice. If I had elected to follow Spadevil, would you really have accepted his faith?”
“He was a great-souled man,” replied Catice. “I see that the pride of our men is only another sprouting-out of pleasure. Tomorrow I too shall leave Sant, to reflect on all this.”
Maskull shuddered. “Then these two deaths were not a necessity, but a crime!”
“His part was played and henceforward the woman would have dragged down his ideas, with her soft love and loyalty. Regret nothing, stranger, but go away at once out of the land.”
“Tonight? Where shall I go?”
“To Wombflash, where you will meet the deepest minds. I will put you on the way.”
He linked his arm in Maskull’s, and they walked away into the night. For a mile or more they skirted the edge of the precipice. The wind was searching, and drove grit into their faces. Through the rifts of the clouds, stars, faint and brilliant, appeared. Maskull saw no familiar constellations. He wondered if the sun of earth was visible, and if so which one it was.
They came to the head of a rough staircase, leading down the cliffside. It resembled the one by which he had come up; but this descended to the Wombflash Forest.