"This will please God," said one of her captors. "He has always said that if he could get hold of an English woman he could do much for the race."
"Who is this thing you call God?" she demanded.
"He is not a thing—he is a man," replied the one who had carried her up the escarpment. "He is very old—he is the oldest creature in the world and the wisest. He created us. But some day he will die, and then we shall have no god."
"Henry the Eighth would like to be God," said the other.
"He never will while Wolsey lives—Wolsey would make a far better god than he."
"Henry the Eighth will see that he doesn't live."
Rhonda Terry closed her eyes and pinched herself. She must be dreaming! Henry the Eighth! Thomas Wolsey! How preposterous seemed these familiar allusions to sixteenth century characters from the mouths of hairy gorillas.
The two brutes had not paused at the summit of the escarpment, but had immediately commenced the descent into the valley. Neither of them, not even the one that had carried her up the steep ascent, showed the slightest sign of fatigue even by accelerated breathing.
The girl was walking now, though one of the brutes held her by an arm and jerked her roughly forward when her steps lagged.
"I cannot walk so fast," she said finally. "I have not eaten for a long time, and I am weak."