THE AMPHIBIANS
I awakened at last to a confused memory only, recalling how I had leapt
short and fallen into the steaming water, which, when it reached that
place, must have cooled. Vaguely I remembered how it had swept me down,
and of a half-stunned instinctive effort to regain my feet, but of how I
got out, or whether I had struggled long in the water, or been able to
wade down it, and so escape the danger of the sand, I could not recall
with certainty. I think I must have been on the sand for the last few
yards, or I should have been swept over the edge by the stream, which
fell sheer five hundred feet into the sea beneath. For I was lying on a
level opal path such as I had traversed previously, with this difference
only, that the cultivated ground sloped upward behind me, and the cliff
upon the other side sank steeply to the sea.
The sun was still hot,--more so on this lower level than on the higher
ground I had left,--and it had dried me while I slept, but I was stiff
with wounds and exhaustion, and faint with hunger, and I found that I
could only stand with difficulty. My boots were soaked with blood, and
the laces were torn away, so that I had to use some string from my
little store of necessities with which to fasten them.
If I wished to reach the end of my journey alive I knew that I must do
so quickly; but I looked round in vain for any path to help me.
Beneath me now was the unchanging sea, blue and smooth, with a touch of
white where the ground shallowed it. Three miles out, it may be, showed
the long line of rocks for which I had been told to look.
Beyond, I knew, must be the grey beaches which I was seeking.
But how could I cross the intervening water? It was a difficulty which
might not have occurred to a creature no more at home on land than in
the water, or perhaps less so. But I was not gilled or web-footed.
Sign of life there was none. Not even a bird was winging across the
unclouded blue.
Even to descend the cliff was impossible.
I might explore the path either to right or left, and with no choice
between them, for it ran straight on as far as I could see in either
direction, and the cliff-wall showed no change.
And then my eyes were attracted by a dark spot, a blur,--a slowly
lengthening blur, which came from the black rocks, and was gradually
stretching itself toward me over the water.
My perception was quickened by past experience. Here must be another
invisible bridge, by which something large and formidable was crossing
toward me.
In fact, as I quickly proved, the bridge stretched out straight before
the place where I was seated, and I had only to remain, and whatever was
coming must inevitably encounter me.
Almost too worn for fear, and recognising the futility of evasion, I
resolved to do so.
I had arrived at so low a point that only active help could aid me. If
that which approached were hostile or indifferent the result would be
similar. So I sat and waited.
It was not very long--for the approach came swiftly--before I was able
to guess that it consisted of a long column of creatures similar to her
whom I had first met. They stretched for half a furlong in mid-air,
advancing at a rapid trot, and as they came nearer I recalled their mode
of conversing, and tried to adjust my mind, to get, if possible, into
sympathy with them.
After a time I succeeded,--at least in hearing their minds, though they
did not respond. I suppose that this was because they were all thinking
as one, for normally I found it impossible to establish conversation in
this way, except by mutual willingness.
I found that these creatures, who had no use for articulate speech, and
to whom sound was an outrage, possessed at once a finer music and a
higher poetry than our clumsier arts had even reached out to imagine.
For they made the music in their minds, or recited it, if it had been
composed earlier, and its notes, that rose and fell, were the very
thoughts that inspired it. It was now a marching chant, and a war-song
of a kind, as I heard it,--
“We have offered our lives on the palm of one hand,
(Is it Wrong that hath willed? Is it God Who hath planned?)
To be taken and lost at our Leaders’ command.
We who are but God’s thought----”
So far I followed it, and then the unison broke, for they perceived me,
and doubted.
Nothing more of their thoughts could I learn till they had reached the
spot where I sat, and were filing past it. I saw that they were in all
respects similar to the one with whom I had been first acquainted,
except that the fur of each was trimmed or patterned in a distinctive
manner, until, when the first score had passed, there came a group of
five who had no such marks upon them, but were in that, and in all other
respects, like the one I first met. Of these, one detached herself from
the group and came toward me, while the others passed onward.
I had learnt enough of their conversing to make my mind at once blank
and receptive to receive her question. I say “her,” not because these
creatures showed any divergencies of form to indicate a bi-sexual
species, but because the slim bodies gave me an impression of
femininity, which makes “it” an inadequate pronoun. She asked,--“You
bring a message? We have received it already, but I should like to hear
it from you.” I replied, “It is this, ‘_I could do nothing. She is in
the fifth killing-pen on the left. There is no watch on the higher
side, and it can be climbed with little peril. The weapons are not
guarded, but the pens are. Bring all you can, except those who pass the
fish forward. You must leave my body till the return, for the fault was
mine._’”
She replied, her mind an open curiosity concerning me as she did so,
“You have remembered well. And she tells me that you saved her body, for
which we are grateful.”
I answered, “I thought I left her dead in the tunnel. Has she come here
before me?”
“We hope her body may still be there. It is dead now, but it should not
be damaged beyond remedy.”
My mind wondered vaguely, and her own answered. “You are a strange
animal, and as ignorant as you are dirty. There are two coming which
will bring you food, and which you must first eat, and then continue
with us, for we could not leave you in safety, and your body, apart from
its deficiencies and that its clumsy coverings are damaged, appears to
be useless until food has restored it.”
Her thought was without hostility; it was kind in tone, however
offensive in substance. She was clearly startled on realising the mental
protest with which I received it. She went on, “You have been useful,
and what we can do for you we will. But if this wild inevitable folly
does not destroy us, I suppose that we must give you up to the Dwellers,
for you seem to me as one that comes from the other lands, whom we are
unable to harbour.”
I have tried to translate the thoughts she gave me into English words,
but it is not easy, and the difficulty is particularly great where
people or places are mentioned. For in the language of thought it is
evident that proper names can have no place. The clumsy device of names
is a necessity of articulate speech, which Adam first discovered when he
attempted language. Consequently, when I write of the “Dwellers” I use
the best word I can apply to the idea she gave me, which was that of a
dominant race, by whom the earth--or that part of it--was held as men
hold civilised lands to-day, and without whose consent no other creature
can remain in security. There was a subtle implication of a shadow
beyond, against which they were leagued in common, but it was too
formless for me to understand it....
Had dogs continued, I wondered, through five hundred millenniums?
The two creatures which trotted at the rear of the column, and which now
paused at her signal, were shaggy, web-footed, with the flapped gills
with which I was already familiar, obviously amphibious, with seals’
eyes, and of the bulk of a walrus. Why should I think of dogs? But the
identity of a dog is not the result of a physical pattern, or how should
we call a Great Dane by the same name as a Skye Terrier?
Not for the first time or the last, I wondered less at the differences
of this strange world than at its similarities to the one behind me.
Round the neck of each of these creatures hung a bag containing food,
intended (as I learnt later) for their own eating. Of this she directed
me to take some for my own use from the nearer one, and when I
hesitated, with mingled fear and repulsion, the sea-dog thrust out an
unexpected length of narrow tongue, that curled down, snake-like, into
the bag, and drew out an object the size of a swan’s egg, but covered
with a tough flexible skin of mottled grey, and held it toward me.
At this my guide threw me a thought of sharp impatience, and enjoined me
to eat it quickly.
I took it then, and broke the skin, and found it contained a semi-liquid
substance, of a slate-grey colour, which I tasted doubtfully, and then
ate with eagerness, for it was sweet and of a delightful taste, and had
a quality which appeased both thirst and hunger.