_You_ read of this with a shudder perhaps? You marvel that in even so remote a hole of the Universe as this Water of Wild Things in the bowels of my little meteor, such ghastly, inhuman things should take place? You forget. Can you not recall that on your own fair Earth, not so very long ago, they cast infant girl-babies into the sacrificial waters of the Granges, to the hungry, eager jaws of the crocodiles? I did not look again. Occasionally there was a sob—a scream; once, a brief, despairing scuffle as some mother found the ordeal beyond her strength. The little half-grown boy, as he passed me with Og’s hand in his, gazed at me with a dumb, terrified appeal . . . I hated myself as I looked away. . . Then—it was all over. The little gateway was replaced. The mothers—empty-armed—swam silently out into the tunnel, through the parted ranks of those alert-eyed, guarding fishes. Maaret, the girl, had disappeared. Og was again alone with us. His lips were leering triumphantly. “You see how well I do my work? Quickly—without confusion.” The leer abruptly faded into grim menace; his eyes blazed at us. “You may take your choice. The hot water, there—” His gesture was to the grating—“Or the cool, sweet water of Rax. But in either case, Nona shall be my Queen.” He turned away. At the tunnel entrance, he paused. “Soon I shall come back for your answer.” He was gone. CHAPTER XXI What were we to do? With such a choice, what could we say? Soon Og would return for his answer! The water of the cave still seemed ringing with his grim, sardonic voice. Hopelessly we sat down for discussion. Nona sat on one of the seats where but a few moments before a Maagog mother had dropped and yielded up her infant to the boiling torrent beyond the grating. I shuddered and pulled Nona away. On the floor, near the center of the cave, we gathered in a huddled group. I braced my feet in the mud, for the current pressed us toward that ghastly grating, beyond which lay death. The cave was silent save for the sinister hiss of steam beneath it. In the lurid green glow of the lamp overhead our faces were livid, death-like. Death hung all about us. An unseen, imponderable spectre, it seemed to lurk in the very water we breathed. We were alone—yet not alone either. At the tunnel-mouth those squat black fishes circled back and forth on guard. Occasionally two or three would enter the cave. Poised before us, their eyes seemed gauging us. Uncanny eyes! Eyes almost like those of an intelligent dog whose master has set him to guard an enemy and who is watching suspiciously, expectantly, that enemy’s every move. We lowered our voices subconsciously, as though fearing that the black fishes would hear us and understand.