“The Star itself is not cooled,” replied I. “I imagine, if the heat were from the sun wholly, the seas would boil over their entire surface rather than in spots.”
“’Tis a Planet in construction, not nearly finished,” said Regan. “Now what possible reason can there be for such a thing as that?”
He pointed to a great black surface of lava, which rose in a mud lake or very deep slough. Around were trees veiled in vines, a reed-grown width of swamp and a waste of reddish mud.
I noticed that the great reeds were matted like crushed cornstalks in many places; they were also mud-spattered and generally draggled and disturbed.
It was necessary for us to spring from one of the matted foot-holds to the ball of lava and from there reach the overhanging vines on the other side; unless we did this we must make a long, uncertain tour around the steaming slough into the vibrating heat of the forest.
“Shall we cross, or go around?” I asked.
“Let us cross, leaving our burdens of bark in this tree; we will return for them to-morrow,” said Regan.
We swung them into the low bough and sprang upon the block, wondering again that it should be there, in the bottomless morass.
It began to move! It shook, commenced to sink! From the mud rose a pillar of black flesh, surmounted by a hideous, yellow-eyed, serpent-tongued head.
With a powerful stroke the shape reached after us, and, striking Regan, cast him like a ball into the vines of the bank.