‘Good-morning,’ said Quentin, feeling that he ought perhaps to be the one.
Instantly every one in sight fell on his face on the deck.
Only one, a tall man with a black beard and a blue mantle, stood up and looked Quentin in the eyes.
‘Who are you?’ he said. ‘Answer, I adjure you by the Sacred Tau!’ Now this was very odd, and Quentin could never understand [p80 it, but when this man spoke Quentin understood him perfectly, and yet at the same time he knew that the man was speaking a foreign language. So that his thought was not, ‘Hullo, you speak English!’ but ‘Hullo, I can understand your language.’
‘I am Quentin de Ward,’ he said.
‘A name from other stars! How came you here?’ asked the blue-mantled man.
‘I don’t know,’ said Quentin.
‘He does not know. He did not sail with us. It is by magic that he is here,’ said Blue Mantle. ‘Rise, all, and greet the Chosen of the Gods.’
They rose from the deck, and Quentin saw that they were all bearded men, with bright, earnest eyes, dressed in strange dress of something like jersey and tunic and heavy golden ornaments.
‘Hail! Chosen of the Gods,’ cried Blue Mantle, who seemed to be the leader.