I Meet Man 23 



began to chill, when we met one of those mighty fabrics 

 made by men and driven by fire across the ocean. We 

 had been so long immune from pursuit, or indeed 

 interference of any kind, that we took little heed of 

 her except just to avoid her great onward rush, and 

 the deadly swirl of her tail. Full of curiosity to see 

 what this wonderful surface-monster might be, I rose 

 behind it, and putting forth all my vigour swam after 

 it to get a good view of it, when suddenly I heard a 

 curious noise almost like the sound we make on a calm 

 day when, lying upon the surface, we strike the water 

 with our tails, and immediately I felt a burning, 

 stinging pain run through me. I swerved in my 

 course, and sought my companions, aU of whom as 

 I joined them put on their utmost speed in our original 

 direction. For a time it seemed as if they avoided 

 me, but, gradually, as the healing of the sea exercised 

 its benignant effect upon the place in my side where 

 I felt the pain, they closed in upon me again and I was 

 no longer shunned. 



Later, as we slowed down, our great chief deigned 

 to halt near me and tell me what had really happened. 

 He said that idle men and women (how I wondered 

 what they were !) on board of these land-monsters 

 or ships, possessing deadly things able to kill a long 

 way off, did not hesitate to try and deprive of life, just 

 for amusement, any of the sea-folk they saw. At which 

 I wondered very much ; for the earliest knowledge I 

 absorbed was, never to kill but for food, and the news 

 that there were creatures who killed for amusement — 

 for pleasure — ^was very terrible to me. 



However, although the memory of that encounter 

 has never left me, my wound healed so rapidly that I 

 never once faltered in our southward rush, feeling 

 stronger and more fit every day, as the good sea gave 



