"How can you be sure?" I pursued. "Suppose someone from my world wished to pass for a native. Suppose he should pluck the hairs from his eyelids and cut away his eyebrows. Would you know him to be an outsider?"
"Come," Vauna said. "We'll walk from one end of the tribe to the other."
While the great endless Kao-Wagwattl carried us on, through deep valleys and across wide plains, Vauna and I went about, day by day, studying the looks of each male member of the tribe.
I scrutinized the eyes of each. I listened to the native enunciations. I got acquainted with each man by name and personality. Vauna's friendship to all was a help. Through her I began to gain a bond of affection for all these people, deep and solid. Their ways became natural to me. In the night their sleep-singing could be heard, welling up softly through the scales within which they rested. In the mornings one could see the parties of agile ones gathering food and liquid fruits that rolled within reach along the sides of the moving Kao.
We crossed a series of islands. For long spaces there would be danger of dips under the surfaces of waters. We would close ourselves tightly within the waterproof interstices until the danger had passed. Later, when the slimy surfaces of the scales had dried off, we would emerge.
And now, out of a chance conversation, I learned of another danger which had been with us all along. Gravgak was also on the Kao-Wagwattl.
"How did you know this?" I asked Vauna sharply.
"Didn't my father tell you? I received a warning soon after we began the journey."
"Warning—from whom?"
"From Leeger."