CHAPTER IV
Within the cave the air seemed warmer than before, perhaps because I was flushed and tired from my exertion. The radiant light from the rocks was soft. Here all was quiet and peace.
At once I threw myself upon Nona’s couch, stretching my limbs, head pillowed upon my crooked arm. For a time, as before she stood regarding me. There was in her gaze now no fear, but a curious softness. I sensed it. With sudden thought she smiled, and swam across the cave. She got a stone, hollowed out like a cup. She filled it at the stream and offered it to me. I drank gratefully.
Again I was conscious of hunger. The fungus-like food was unsatisfying. I made Nona understand, and she seemed distressed. I could see she wanted to feed me but had no other food.
Finally she motioned me to lie quiet. I watched her as she stretched herself prone on the ground near me. Her head was raised; she was looking keenly, carefully about the cave. Then she began swimming, slowly, stealthily, no more than a foot or two above the cave floor, circling about, up along the walls, back overhead following the line of the ceiling.
Once, when she was hovering over by the side wall, I saw her grow suddenly alert. I followed her steady gaze; and on a rock fifty feet from her I made out the outlines of something lying motionless. It looked like a lizard some three feet long, with white eyes standing out from its forehead. It was because of the eyes that I first saw it.
Nona was in midair. Then, like a wasp she darted at that thing on the rock.
The lizard—I shall call it that—saw her coming. It leaped, and sailed across the cave. I saw it that it had webbed membranes connecting its six outstretched legs.
Nona turned in the air after it, her slim body as sinuous as her waving hair itself. She was faster than the lizard, but again, on the opposite side of the cave, it eluded her.
Back and forth across the cave they went. Often the reptile would dash for one of the passageways but Nona with her greater intelligence, always anticipated it and was there to bar its way.