I think as the creature contracted and closed its petals I might have stayed the blows if it had not screamed for mercy on a note which gave me a feeling of nausea, and a lust to kill, so that I struck till the great flesh-like leaves were gashed and shredded; till, as the cries continued, I realised that the centre of its life was underground, beyond my power to reach it. Then I lowered the axe, and looked round. Dimly I was aware that my heart was beating wildly, and that I was breathing with difficulty. Still the forest was screaming around me in deafening tones of fear and hate and menace. I looked back to the comparative safety of the cave I had left, and I saw the one that I had saved slowly dragging herself towards it, and as I did so I was conscious that she knew my thought, and answered. I became aware for the first time that the soil on which I stood was hot, and that my feet were scorching. I threw the axe towards the cave, and went to help the one that I had ventured to rescue, and doing this, I had a strange feeling of repulsion, as from an alien body, and of attraction, as to a kindred soul. I knew that she was mortally injured, and feared that I must horribly hurt the limp body as I picked it up. I was startled by its lightness, and surprised that it made no sound. As I lifted her, I was conscious again of the interchange of wordless thought, but when I answered mechanically with a spoken word I was rebuffed by the expression of repulsion and wonder which crossed her eyes. But as I laid her down in the cave-mouth, wondering what I could do to aid her further, her thought answered mine clearly, “Do not touch my body. It is dead.” Then our minds met, and for some moments wrestled abortively, till I realised that I could not understand unless my own were willing, and blank, and receptive. Nor could she understand my thought unless it were consciously approached to hers. After that, we conversed in silence for some time, but very slowly. So wide was the gulf of separation in knowledge and experience, so baffling the mental shorthand by which agreed fact is implied without expression, so difficult was it to avoid the continual byways of explanation which only led to others, that it was a long time before I could receive even a blurred outline of the urgent facts which she was striving to give me. By this time I realised that she regarded me as something strange and beast-like, and that any noise from my mouth would intensify this feeling against me, and confirm the judgment. I knew also that she recognised me as sympathetic, and in some measure intelligent, however physically repulsive--a repulsion made more acute by the clothes I wore, of which I was made to feel a sense of acute shame, so strongly did her mind impress my own with a conception of their indecency. I thought that she regarded me much as we should do a half-tamed dog, ferocious, but amenable to kindness and reason, and of a possible loyalty.