Understand me. It isn't cynicism, or bitterness, or despair, but heroism.... It's hard to explain.""Now you shall hear what sacrifice I offer you, Maskull. It's a heavy one, but that's what you seem to wish.""That is so. In my present mood it can't be too heavy.""Then, if you are in earnest, resign your body to me. Now that Crimtyphon's dead, I'm tired of being a woman.""I fail to comprehend."
"Listen, then. I wish to start a new existence in your body. I wish to be a male. I see it isn't worth while being a woman. I mean to dedicate my own body to Crimtyphon. I shall tie his body and mine together, and give them a common funeral in the burning lake. That's the sacrifice I offer you. As I said, it's a hard one.""So you do ask me to die. Though how you can make use of my body is difficult to understand.""No, I don't ask you to die. You will go on living.""How is it possible without a body?"
Tydomin gazed at him earnestly. "There are many such beings, even in your world. There you call them spirits, apparitions, phantoms.
They are in reality living wills, deprived of material bodies, always longing to act and enjoy, but quite unable to do so. Are you noble-minded enough to accept such a state, do you think?""If it's possible, I accept it," replied Maskull quietly. "Not in spite of its heaviness, but because of it. But how is it possible?""Undoubtedly there are very many things possible in our world of which you have no conception. Now let us wait till we get home. Idon't hold you to your word, for unless it's a free sacrifice I will have nothing to do with it.""I am not a man who speaks lightly. If you can perform this miracle, you have my consent, once for all.""Then we'll leave it like that for the present," said Tydomin sadly.
They proceeded on their way. Owing to the subsidence, Tydomin seemed rather doubtful at first as to the right road, but by making a long divergence they eventually got around to the other side of the newly formed chasm. A little later on, in a narrow copse crowning a miniature, insulated peak, they fell in with a man. He was resting himself against a tree, and looked tired, overheated, and despondent.