'Over his heels,' said I.
'I do not complehend!'
'He killed him, then.'
'That I know. But how did Abel feel when he was killed? What is it to be killed?'
'Well,' said I, 'you have seen bones all around you, and the bones of your mother, and you can feel the bones in your fingers. Your fingers will become mere bone after you are dead, as die you must. Those bones which you see around you, are, of course, the bones of the men of whom we often speak: and the same thing happened to them which happens to a fish or a butterfly when you catch them, and they lie all still.'
'And the men and the butterfly feel the same after they are dead?'
'Precisely the same. They lie in a deep drowse, and dream a nonsense-dream.'
'That is not dleadful. I thought that it was much more dleadful. I should not mind dying.'
'Ah!... so much the better: for it is possible that you may have to die a great deal sooner than you think.'
'I should not mind. Why were men so vely aflaid to die?'