CHAPTER XXVII
Mutron of the Sleepers
For half a dozen hours we lumbered eastward through the forest. We wallowed through swamps, and rolled over broad green meadows alight with the crimson day, and broke through jungles bright with purple bloom. At last we emerged on a narrow upland, with the great lake below it. The black sheet of water, tinged with the red light of the sky, stretched away for many miles to the eastward. Along its northern shore we could see the low cliffs that divided it from the pit of Xath.
We stopped the machine, and looked for a long time across the black lake to the north, and over the low cliffs to the ruby mist beyond, alive with the dancing violet lights.
Then I turned to the rare girl beside me, who was watching me with tears brimming in her violet eyes. The utter grief, the black despair on her face half broke my resolution. I felt doubtful, weak, utterly miserable, with pain stabbing at my heart like a thin steel blade.
"It is right. You must go," she whispered bravely.
I took her in my arms again. How wonderful and true she was! Struggling so bravely to hold back her tears! More precious than ever in the final parting! A single hour of the heaven of that embrace—embittered by the knowledge that it would soon be ended!
Then, quickly, lest my resolution fail, I made ready for departure! I stretched up a tent in a little grove above the lake, and stocked it with a liberal assortment of supplies from our store-room. I gave Xenora an automatic and a case of ammunition, and showed her how to use the weapon. Here she was to stay, in the vain hope that I might return a victor from the mad attack on the Lord of Flame.
For I had determined to enter the abyss. I knew that was what Sam would have me do, rather than lose time in an attempt to learn his fate. Xenora was eager to cast her lot with mine, but I would not hear of it.