“We hope her body may still be there. It is dead now, but it should not be damaged beyond remedy.” My mind wondered vaguely, and her own answered. “You are a strange animal, and as ignorant as you are dirty. There are two coming which will bring you food, and which you must first eat, and then continue with us, for we could not leave you in safety, and your body, apart from its deficiencies and that its clumsy coverings are damaged, appears to be useless until food has restored it.” Her thought was without hostility; it was kind in tone, however offensive in substance. She was clearly startled on realising the mental protest with which I received it. She went on, “You have been useful, and what we can do for you we will. But if this wild inevitable folly does not destroy us, I suppose that we must give you up to the Dwellers, for you seem to me as one that comes from the other lands, whom we are unable to harbour.” I have tried to translate the thoughts she gave me into English words, but it is not easy, and the difficulty is particularly great where people or places are mentioned. For in the language of thought it is evident that proper names can have no place. The clumsy device of names is a necessity of articulate speech, which Adam first discovered when he attempted language. Consequently, when I write of the “Dwellers” I use the best word I can apply to the idea she gave me, which was that of a dominant race, by whom the earth--or that part of it--was held as men hold civilised lands to-day, and without whose consent no other creature can remain in security. There was a subtle implication of a shadow beyond, against which they were leagued in common, but it was too formless for me to understand it.... Had dogs continued, I wondered, through five hundred millenniums? The two creatures which trotted at the rear of the column, and which now paused at her signal, were shaggy, web-footed, with the flapped gills with which I was already familiar, obviously amphibious, with seals’ eyes, and of the bulk of a walrus. Why should I think of dogs? But the identity of a dog is not the result of a physical pattern, or how should we call a Great Dane by the same name as a Skye Terrier? Not for the first time or the last, I wondered less at the differences of this strange world than at its similarities to the one behind me. Round the neck of each of these creatures hung a bag containing food, intended (as I learnt later) for their own eating. Of this she directed me to take some for my own use from the nearer one, and when I hesitated, with mingled fear and repulsion, the sea-dog thrust out an unexpected length of narrow tongue, that curled down, snake-like, into the bag, and drew out an object the size of a swan’s egg, but covered with a tough flexible skin of mottled grey, and held it toward me. At this my guide threw me a thought of sharp impatience, and enjoined me to eat it quickly.