"Please overlook any little irregularities of conduct, sir My brain, you know, and—well, good-bye!"
Calmly he picked up his sack and without more ado jumped into the void.
"Now," said the Master, when "Captain Alden" and he remained alone.
"Now—you and I!"
"Yes," the woman answered. "You and I, at last!"
The Master set down his lamp on the floor all wet with condensed vapor and wine. He loosened the buckles of her mask, took the mask off and tossed it into the pit.
"Finis, for that!" said he, and smiled strangely. "You aren't going to be handicapped by any mask, in whatever struggle lies ahead of us. If you get through to the world, and to life again, you get through as a woman.
"If not, you die as one. But the disguise is done with, and gone. You understand me!"
"Yes. I understand," she answered, and stood peering up at him. Not even the white welts and ridges cut in her flesh by the long wearing of the mask could make her face anything but very beautiful. Her wonderful eyes mirrored far more, as they looked into this strange man's, than would be easy to write down in words.
"I understand," she repeated. "If this is death, I couldn't have dreamed or hoped for a better one. In that, at least, we can be eternally together—you and I!"
Silence fell, save for the shuddering roar of the black river, that rose with vapors from the dark pit. Man and woman, they searched out each other's souls with their gaze.