Krag seemed to grow sallower and more repulsive every minute. “What, because they have left off stroking you?” he exclaimed, laughing and showing his discoloured teeth.
“Whoever you are, and whatever you want,” said Maskull, “you seem very certain of yourself.”
“Yes, you would like me to blush and stammer like a booby, wouldn’t you! That would be an excellent way of destroying lies.”
Gangnet glanced toward the foot of one of the trees. He stooped and picked up two or three objects that resembled eggs.
“To eat?” asked Maskull, accepting the offered gift.
“Yes, eat them; you must be hungry. I want none myself, and one mustn’t insult Krag by offering him a pleasure—especially such a low pleasure.”
Maskull knocked the ends off two of the eggs, and swallowed the liquid contents. They tasted rather alcoholic. Krag snatched the remaining egg out of his hand and flung it against a tree trunk, where it broke and stuck, a splash of slime.
“I don’t wait to be asked, Gangnet.... Say, is there a filthier sight than a smashed pleasure?”
Gangnet did not reply, but took Maskull’s arm.
After they had alternately walked through forests and descended cliffs and slopes for upward of two hours, the landscape altered. A steep mountainside commenced and continued for at least a couple of miles, during which space the land must have dropped nearly four thousand feet, at a practically uniform gradient. Maskull had seen nothing like this immense slide of country anywhere. The hill slope carried an enormous forest on its back. This forest, however, was different from those they had hitherto passed through. The leaves of the trees were curled in sleep, but the boughs were so close and numerous that, but for the fact that they were translucent, the rays of the sun would have been completely intercepted. As it was, the whole forest was flooded with light, and this light, being tinged with the colour of the branches, was a soft and lovely rose. So gay, feminine, and dawnlike was the illumination, that Maskull’s spirits immediately started to rise, although he did not wish it.