Swaylone's Island. Men sometimes go there, but none ever return. In
the evening of the same day we found Broodviol standing in a deep,
miry pit in the forest, surrounded on all sides by trees three
hundred feet high. He was a big gnarled, rugged, wrinkled, sturdy
old man. His age at that time was a hundred and twenty of our years,
or nearly six hundred of yours. His body was trilateral: he had
three legs, three arms, and six eyes, placed at equal distances all
around his head. This gave him an aspect of great watchfulness and
sagacity. He was standing in a sort of trance. I afterward heard
this saying of his: 'To lie is to sleep, to sit is to dream, to stand
is to think.' My father caught the infection, and fell into
meditation, but my mother roused them both thoroughly. Broodviol
scowled at her savagely, and demanded what she required. Then I too
learned for the first time the object of our journey. I was a
prodigy--that is to say, I was without sex. My parents were
troubled over this, and wished to consult the wisest of men.

"Old Broodviol smoothed his face, and said, 'This perhaps will not be
so difficult. I will explain the marvel. Every man and woman among
us is a walking murderer. If a male, he has struggled with and
killed the female who was born in the same body with him--if a
female, she has killed the male. But in this child the struggle is
still continuing.'

"'How shall we end it?' asked my mother.

"'Let the child direct its will to the scene of the combat, and it
will be of whichever sex it pleases.'

"'You want, of course, to be a man, don't you?' said my mother to me