Whether they had received warning of our coming I could not tell, but I reflected that even though a report should have reached them that the regiment of the Amphibians had passed into the mountains six score miles away, they would not only suppose that no fear from that quarter would be possible for a day at least (or much longer if they should judge by their own speed of progression), but might not even think that any hostility to themselves were intended, nor might it occur to them as possible that an attack would be made in the night-time, when they might suppose the custom of rest to be universal. Even if they knew that two of us were wandering on the lower slopes, we might only appear to them as prey to be sought in the morning, and, I thought, with a sudden lightening of humour, they might be right in their estimate. On the balance of probabilities, I thought the better course would be to approach them boldly, and try what might be done in secrecy while the darkness was round us. Indeed, when we gained the plateau, caution lacked opportunity, if we were to advance at all. For outside the enclosure it was bare and flat beneath the starlight, and a rat could have found no shelter. Having crossed the open space as quietly as we could, we walked for some distance along the outside of the enclosure. It was a back-sloping wall, or roof, as I had seen it before, having no door or window in all its length; but knowing that there were doors along the inner side, and that the Killers slept within it, and not knowing how lightly they might do so, or how thin might be the wall that divided us from them, we now moved very silently till we came to the gateway. Here we paused in surprise, for it was not only unguarded, but open. There was a double gate that opened inward. Sockets were faintly visible in the ground, into which vertical bolts could be driven to secure them. You know how a fox will use all its cunning to find some illicit entrance to the poultry house, but will turn away from open door or window, lest a trap be concealed behind the apparent negligence? So I felt as I looked, and saw something dimly on the ground behind the gateway, and hesitated, and remembered that the night was long, and haste was needless, and asked my companion how soon would be the moonrise. In the end, we went back and waited under the edge of the plateau. It is commonly held that the capacity of the average woman for logical reasoning is inferior to that of a man, but that she has a compensating advantage in a superior ability of intuitive perception, and may even reach a more correct conclusion in some instances by such unreasoned cognition, than a man will do by the exercise of a superior logical faculty.