The darkness was rose-tinged, not with sunset. There were two moons,
Paul remembered, one white and large and far away, one red and near.
Should the red moon be shining now? He gazed through the half-open
doorway, wondering why he was not afraid, seeing something pale and
vast, washed in--yes, surely in reddish moon-light. A thing swaying on
the pillars of its legs, perhaps listening, tasting the air for
strangeness. And scattered through the night, sapphires on black
velvet, were tiny dots of blue, moving, vanishing, reappearing. "Blue
fireflies," Dorothy whispered, "blue fireflies, that's all they are."
He felt her controlled breathing, forced down a foolish laugh. _We
could have done without a white elephant._
Nine or ten feet tall at the shoulder, a tapir-like snout, black tusks
bending more nearly downward than an elephant's, from milk-white
flesh. The ears were mobile, waving to study the night. There was an
oval hump near the base of the neck. The beast had been facing them;
it turned to pull down a branch, munch the leaves, casually drop the
stalk. In silence it drifted away, pausing to meditate, grumbling
juicily, but with no alarm.