Now, only two of them remained. From their glances he knew that they were talking about him. Finally, one of them lifted him from the table; and, walking swiftly, carried him through the door, across a short stretch of open ground, and into a smaller and darker structure, there laying him down upon a bed of cloths and cushions in one corner of the single room. The other followed them in, carrying a china dish and cup. Setting these beside him, they both pointed with their fingers to their open mouths. He understood immediately, and was glad. He needed nourishment badly.
But when he looked into the dish his pleasure abated. It contained an assortment of what appeared to be parts of plants and—he tried to conceal his horror—animal flesh.
Looking up, he nodded—a gesture that he had quickly learned; and to his great relief they turned and left the room, closing the door. He heard a sharp click.
The flesh he immediately put aside. He did not like to think what its origin might be. He studied the plants. They had evidently been subjected to a heat process, but had not been chemically refined in any way. The percentage of nourishment in them must be very low, and it would be necessary for him to eat great quantities to sustain his strength. He wondered how long his stomach could stand it.
These people must eat almost daily to sustain themselves on such fare, he reasoned, marvelling.
With a pronged implement that they had given him, he set to work to mash the food into as soft a mass as possible. This process they accomplished easily with their fangs, he knew.
The taste was anything but pleasing, and he had great difficulty in swallowing; but he finally managed to assuage his hunger, and felt better. He drank a little water from the cup, which contained enough to supply him for at least five days.
This done, he stretched himself out upon the bed, and gave himself over to pleasant reflection. A far cry, he thought, from the man lying helpless in the desert, devoid of all hope, to the one who had established contact with a race of intelligent beings who would doubtless be willing to help him return to his own native world. He reflected that if the flying ship had hot happened to come near him, he would most certainly have perished by now—perished in a foreign world, far away from those he loved, never knowing there was a chance for his salvation. But now he had taken the first step.... Anything was possible now.
His attention returned to his surroundings. The bare room was lighted by a bulb hanging from wires in the center. From it dangled a cord, the purpose of which he quickly guessed. The walls and floor were bare wood, and rough. Along the whole length of one wall extended a low, narrow table, or bench, strewn with a miscellaneous collection of objects which aroused his curiosity.
He crawled to the bench, and pulled himself erect by grasping its edge. He was just tall enough to see along its surface. Near him rested a large roll of what he first thought was cord; but on closer examination he decided that it was metal wire covered with a fibre insulation. Obviously it was for the conduction of electricity. Scattered around it were a number of cylinders of varying sizes, which he saw were wound closely with very fine wires. Clearly, these people did more with electricity than make light, he thought, encouraged.