“I don’t see that they concern us,” I answered, “unless you think that we should release them before we leave. They are not very attractive animals, but I don’t know that I want them to be burnt to death. Still, your Leader said they ought to die.” “That is just the point,” she replied, “it was the order that they should die, and I am of no mind to go, and leave them living.” “I suppose your Leader meant that if we drove off the Killers, we should do wrong to release them, and I have no wish to do so. But the Killers are still here to boil them, if the fire should prove more merciful. Surely that is sufficient. I did not think you so bloodthirsty. Besides, the circumstances are different from anything that your Leader could have foreseen.” “Yes, the circumstances are certainly different. I think, where you are concerned, they always are,” she answered drily, “but it is in my mind that the Killers will not be here much longer. I think, also, that my Leaders see very far, and that when we have gone a different way we have not found it a good one. It seems to me that it is a thing that we cannot leave to the chance that the Killers will remain, or of the flames falling. We have this to think. We are in the land of the Dwellers, where we have no right to be. They had judged these Bat-wings, which were theirs, and they had given them to be used at a Feast which will very surely not be held, through our doing. They had not judged them to burn. I think we should see that their will is done, if we are able.” I saw that she regarded the fate of the Bat-wings no more than that of a shoal of cod that she might guide to the fish-tanks--or, indeed, less, if she compared them, for the cod would be innocent of anything worse than feeding when hunger urged them--but that her feeling was as that of one who has unavoidably trampled his neighbour’s garden, and would smooth it over, as best he may, before leaving. I said, “I see your view, and for you it may be right. But though you regard me as a lower creature than yourself, and addicted to violence, I am not willing to throw wretches into the boiling tank--which seems your purpose--for faults which I have not judged, and the guilt of which I am unable to estimate. Neither am I willing to release them, lest they might do us mischief, or desire our company. Nor do I think the fire will reach them, for the steam will quench it.”