“Then, how does one get out of this place?”
Now they all twittered together, and they flitted around Kerin with small squeakings. “One does not get out of this place.”
Kerin did not cry pettishly, as Saraïde would have done, “Good Lord!” Instead, he said, “Dear me!”
“Nor have we any wish to leave this place,” said the small lizard-women. “These waters hold us here with the dark loveliness of doom; we have fallen into an abiding hatred of these waters; we may not leave them because of our fear. It is not possible for any man to imagine the cruelty of these waters. Therefore we dance above them; and all the while that we dance we think about warmth and food instead of about these waters.”
“And have you no food here nor any warmth, not even brimstone? For I remember that, up yonder in Poictesme, our priests were used to threaten—”
“We do not bother about priests any longer. But a sort of god provides our appointed food.”
“Come, come now, that is much better. For, as I was just saying to my wife, supper is a matter of vital importance, after a rather hard day of it— But who is this sort of god?”
“We do not know. We only know that he has nineteen names.”
“My very dear little ladies,” said Kerin, “your information appears so limited, and your brightness so entirely physical, that I now hesitate to ask if you know for what reason somebody is sounding that far-off gong which I can hear?”
“That gong means, sir, that our appointed food is ready.”