"We happen to be bloody Yankees, but we use a borrowed tongue. You wouldn't have a drink on you for a tubful of thirsty travellers, would you?"
"The fountain."
"Ah—I see."
But the crew all drank of the fountain to be sociable. It was water, but water that excelled, cool and with all its original bubbles like the first water ever made.
"What do you make of them?" asked Stark.
"Human," said Steiner. "It may even be that they are a little more than human. I don't understand that light that surrounds them. And they seem to be clothed, as it were, in dignity."
"And very little else," said Father Briton, "though that light trick does serve a purpose. But I'm not sure they'd pass in Philadelphia."
"Talk to them again," said Stark. "You're the linguist."
"That isn't necessary here, Captain. Talk to them yourself."