The two men went on watching the blue sunrise. The entire sky in the north, halfway up to the zenith, was streaked with extraordinary colours, among which jale and dolm predominated. Just as the principal character of an ordinary dawn is mystery, the outstanding character of this dawn was wildness. It did not baffle the understanding, but the heart. Maskull felt no inarticulate craving to seize and perpetuate the sunrise, and make it his own. Instead of that, it agitated and tormented him, like the opening bars of a supernatural symphony. When he looked back to the south, Branchspell’s day had lost its glare, and he could gaze at the immense white sun without flinching. He instinctively turned to the north again, as one turns from darkness to light. “If those were Crystalman’s thoughts that you showed me before, Gangnet, these must be his feelings. I mean it literally. What I am feeling now, he must have felt before me.” “He is all feeling, Maskull—don’t you understand that?” Maskull was feeding greedily on the spectacle before him; he did not reply. His face was set like a rock, but his eyes were dim with the beginning of tears. The sky blazed deeper and deeper; it was obvious that Alppain was about to lift itself above the sea. The island had by this time floated past the mouth of the estuary. On three sides they were surrounded by water. The haze crept up behind them and shut out all sight of land. Krag was still sleeping—an ugly, wrinkled monstrosity. Maskull looked over the side at the flowing water. It had lost its dark green colour, and was now of a perfect crystal transparency. “Are we already on the Ocean, Gangnet?” “Yes.” “Then nothing remains except my death.” “Don’t think of death, but life.” “It’s growing brighter—at the same time, more sombre. Krag seems to be fading away....” “There is Alppain!” said Gangnet, touching his arm. The deep, glowing disk of the blue sun peeped above the sea. Maskull was struck to silence. He was hardly so much looking, as feeling. His emotions were unutterable. His soul seemed too strong for his body. The great blue orb rose rapidly out of the water, like an awful eye watching him.... it shot above the sea with a bound, and Alppain’s day commenced. “What do you feel?” Gangnet still held his arm. “I have set myself against the Infinite,” muttered Maskull. Suddenly his chaos of passions sprang together, and a wonderful idea swept through his whole being, accompanied by the intensest joy. “Why, Gangnet—I am nothing.” “No, you are nothing.” The mist closed in all around them. Nothing was visible except the two suns, and a few feet of sea. The shadows of the three men cast by Alppain were not black, but were composed of white daylight. “Then nothing can hurt me,” said Maskull with a peculiar smile. Gangnet smiled too. “How could it?” “I have lost my will; I feel as if some foul tumour had been scraped away, leaving me clean and free.” “Do you now understand life, Maskull?”