got underneath the trees the light rays of the sun continued to come
through--white, savage, and blazing--but they were gelded of heat.
Then it was not hard to imagine that they were wandering through
cool, bright elfin glades.

Through the forest, beginning at their very feet an avenue, perfectly
straight and not very wide, went forward as far as the eye could see.

Maskull wanted to talk to his travelling companion, but was somehow
unable to find words. Panawe glanced at him with an inscrutable
smile--stern, yet enchanting and half feminine. He then broke the
silence, but, strangely enough, Maskull could not make out whether he
was singing or speaking. From his lips issued a slow musical
recitative, exactly like a bewitching adagio from a low toned
stringed instrument--but there was a difference. Instead of the
repetition and variation of one or two short themes, as in music,
Panawe's theme was prolonged--it never came to an end, but rather
resembled a conversation in rhythm and melody. And, at the same
time, it was no recitative, for it was not declamatory. It was a
long, quiet stream of lovely emotion.

Maskull listened entranced, yet agitated. The song, if it might be
termed song, seemed to be always just on the point of becoming clear
and intelligible--not with the intelligibility of words, but in the
way one sympathises with another's moods and feelings; and Maskull
felt that something important was about to be uttered, which would
explain all that had gone before. But it was invariably postponed,
he never understood--and yet somehow he did understand.

Late in the afternoon they came to a clearing, and there Panawe