"Martian?" Nick was astonished. "Have they a real language? Then they're really intelligent?" He had suspected but hadn't known.
"Of course," she whispered. "Ssh! You're disturbing the cajora."
"What's Klev? What do you want?"
"He's a Martian. My friend," she answered, and talked to the cajora again as though it were a dog or cat.
"I think he understands," she said after a little. "Keep your hand on him and follow."
Nick was hesitant, but the only alternative was to remain in the pitch black, musty tunnel.
For hours they shuffled blindly along, their hands meeting in the loose fur of the beast's neck. The tunnel sloped downward, turning right and left so that within minutes Nick was hopelessly lost. Time and again his outstretched fingers, trailing along the wall, encountered the emptiness of side tunnels and branchings, but the cajora moved purposefully ahead. Several times Nick tried to talk, to ask the questions which were perplexing him, but each time the girl silenced him.
"You'll distract the cajora," she warned.
The animal stopped short as they rounded a turn and saw a glimmer of light ahead.
"They don't like light," she explained. "We'll have to go on alone."