For some time Daphne lay drowsily looking at the garden, hardly conscious of the journey she had made. The past seemed a dream, and the present a dream within a dream. At last her curiosity led her to examine the details of her chamber, and she rose up. Hardly had she done so, when she heard in an ante-room at the farther end a clamour of voices as soft and thin as those of little children, and yet with a strange resemblance to those of grown people in the fulness and quickness of the articulation. Suddenly, through the opening of the curtain which half concealed the aperture, a troop of tiny little people rushed and ran up to Daphne, kissed the ground before her, and then stood still, as if waiting for her commands. She then saw they were really men and women of the true pigmy race. They were finely shaped, and had pretty, well-cut features, and without exception the most pleasant of countenances. They looked up to her just like dogs waiting for some notice to be taken of them, with glances full of suppressed friendliness. It was very gratifying to her, after the strange dangers through which she had passed, to meet with such spontaneous affection from the little people. At a venture she spoke to them in Greek, and asked for food and water, and one of them immediately gave orders to the rest in the same old Greek dialect which Thoth had used. In a very short time a table was covered with all kinds of delicacies. The pigmies, Daphne observed, were very strong, and with incredible agility they avoided any inconveniences due to their smallness of stature, leaping on one another’s shoulders, and climbing with the agility of monkeys. As soon as Daphne had finished her repast, her little servants conducted her through a series of apartments, all appointed in a very elegant manner, and they showed her with pride everything which seemed to them most beautiful and useful. They watched with evident glee, and yet in a perfectly deferential manner, for her surprise when they revealed some new wonder. Her greatest desire, however, was to know who the little men and women were, and this wish was only gratified to a very small extent. Their position seemed to them so natural, that they did not understand the meaning of her questions. In each answer everything seemed to depend on Thoth. To say that Thoth had commanded such and such a thing, seemed to them final. They could no more explain why they obeyed and revered Thoth as an altogether superior being, than they could say why the sun gave light, or a stone fell to the earth. One thing alone was quite clear—they were absolutely under the sway of Thoth, and yet the relationship was one of thorough love and confidence. They had evidently been told to treat Daphne in the same manner, and they did so with the greatest joyfulness. They were indeed models of affectionate servants, and examples of perfect obedience.