"No friend of mine," I said, and then, turning to him, "but why? Why this two-day reversal of my feelings? Why has this thing happened to me, Skagarach?" "So quickly ... I don't know why it happened so quickly. As for the general _why_ of it, it's blood and bone and sinew and soul come down to us from the beings we once were. It's a powerful strain--so powerful that powerful is a weak word for it. I think it must be the strongest blood-strain that ever ran in animal veins. One drop, I think, would redden an ocean of milk." "Animal." I repeated. One of the Old Companions put a tall drink in my hand and I nodded thanks. "I know this, but tell me again. We are _not_ men, are we?" * * * * * He looked into my eyes with those uncanny gray jewel-orbs. "No, we are not. At least not Homo sapiens pure and simple. I believe we began this hybrid race by stealing and mating with human women--" I recalled my long-ago death by treachery and agreed--"and then possibly the offspring of those unions mated among men. Certainly the Picts were not pure _us_. Then afterward the breed was watered again when the Picts bred to outlanders. Men always hated us, but women are strange creatures and--well, the unions must have been many. A mere handful that's accounted for by thefts of women couldn't have produced the mighty tide of anti-human passion which runs in us after so many centuries. Many millions must have our taint in them, though comparatively few have it so abundantly as you and I and these Old Companions. Note that I say 'comparatively'. Actually there are thousands of us who recognize our essential difference." "So now the old blood wakes in us," I said exultantly. "Why? After so long, why now? Are we like locusts, our knowledge lying hidden for an age and then bursting up in all of us at the same time?" "A quaint notion," said Skagarach. "No, we have always known, I think, in all the periods of history. But we never banded together before, never fought the ancient enemy as an army within its gates, as we are doing and will do with increasing potency." "Why not?" "Think, Cuff, only think! You are born in 1700; at a certain age you begin to know you are different. You hate the race of men. You have racial memories of living in caves, of being harried by men. What do you do? You never heard the name of--what we were and are. Science has told you nothing of prehistory. So where do you end?" He shrugged. "Bedlam. The lunatic dungeons. Fancy ladies come and giggle at you, the murderous madman, through the bars. You pine for fresh air and freedom, because freedom is even more precious to our race than to man. You die." "Oh," I said, catching his meaning. "It's only in the last century that science has opened the door to the past, of course. Now we can realize what we are, and work accordingly."