"Life is flaming up inside you," replied Leehallfae, shaking aer
head. "But after it has reached its climax--perhaps tonight--it
will sink rapidly and you'll die tomorrow. As for me, if I enter
Threal I shan't come out again. A smell of death is being wafted to
me out of this hole."

"You talk like a frightened man. I smell nothing."

"I am not frightened," said Leehallfae quietly--ae had been
gradually recovering aer tranquillity--"but when one has lived as
long as I have, it is a serious matter to die. Every year one puts
out new roots."

"Decide what you're going to do," said Maskull with a touch of
contempt, "for I'm going in at once."

The phaen gave an odd, meditative stare down the ravine, and after
that walked into the cavern without another word. Maskull,
scratching his head, followed close at aer heels.

The moment they stepped across the bubbling spring, the atmosphere
altered. Without becoming stale or unpleasant, it grew cold, clear
and refined, and somehow suggested austere and tomblike thoughts.
The daylight disappeared at the first bend in the tunnel. After
that, Maskull could not say where the light came from. The air
itself must have been luminous, for though it was as light as full
moon on Earth, neither he nor Leehallfae cast a shadow. Another
peculiarity of the light was that both the walls of the tunnel and
their own bodies appeared colourless. Everything was black and
white, like a lunar landscape. This intensified the solemn, funereal