You are amazed and perhaps incredulous at this physiological fact? You need not be—a very similar condition occurs on your own Earth. Indeed, only the ignorant can dare be rashly incredulous. In your own waters, as you would know if you ever bothered to apprise yourself of the fact, there exists the electric eel. Your learned men call it _gymnotus electricus_. It uses against its enemies very similar tactics to those Og used against me. And with very similar results, for it can kill or stun a fish much larger than itself. Many an ignorant native fisherman in the smaller streams which empty into your Orinoco River, has learned this fact to his cost. And, to multiply instances, you have the _torpedo_ and the whole family of _rays_. It was from them your scientist Galvani made his study of the electrical properties of muscles and nerves, applying his discoveries to the higher animals and to man. I was soon recovered—and a wiser man than before. And I swore to myself that never again would I ignore the proffered advice of a friend. My first desire was to fight Og again at once. With the knowledge of what I must avoid, I knew I could defeat him. I went to the place he lived, but he was not there. The news that I wanted another combat—which was my right—spread through the city. Og had doubtless hoped I would die; when I recovered, and searched for him, he could not be found. After the next time of sleep, I learned he had left Rax. Shell-fish gatherers, working under Caan, reported seeing him swimming alone toward the Water of Wild Things. He did not return. The region known as the Water of Wild Things was where he had been born, some said, and his only relations were among the half-savage beings living there. I was content. With Og gone—my second fight with him, indeed was postponed for a considerable time—there was nothing in Rax to disturb my own and my Nona’s happiness. We had our home, our love and our son. CHAPTER XIV I go back again in my memories to that year in the underwater Marinoid city of Rax—the year of quiet and peace for Nona and me which followed the birth of our son. Boy, we called him; everyone called him that, for he was the only child of his kind in our world. It was a wonderful, happy time for us both. In all the Universe there was never another like our Boy. So thought Nona and I. Pink and white, with his laughing blue eyes, and soft blond hair on his little head, he would lie cradled in the big white shell that stood in the center of our living room. The tiny bits of vegetation which often floated in the water past his face were his toys to snatch at and demolish; and Nona, who fed him, crooned to him, and when he was no more than a month or two old guided his baby flounderings into swimming strokes, was the center of everything around which his infant world revolved.