The lizard seemed jointed all over, and it could turn in the air with extraordinary swiftness. But not so swift as Nona. Once the reptile whirled back and forth on a sustained flight. Nona followed its every twist and turn as one bird follows another.
At last she had it in her arms, in midair at the center of the cave. Calling to me in triumph, she struggled with it, fighting her way down to the ground.
I started toward her, but her voice and gesture waved me away. The lizard was screaming—a shrill, hideous scream. But she had its back bent across her knee. Its spine broke with a crack. It lay still.
By one foreleg she held its quivering body up to me; she was laughing with happiness as she sought my applause.
We ate the meat of its tail and legs; and satiated, I lay somnolent on the robes and watched Nona moving about the cave. She extinguished the fire, and at last approached me timidly. I did not notice her. My eyes were half closed. I was vaguely planning my own hunting for food—wondering if there would be other reptiles larger, for me to capture.
A twitch at the coverings on which I was lying aroused me. Nona was pulling a robe out from under me for herself. I pushed it toward her.
I did not move. It was very soundless in the cave with only the murmuring of the stream. Nona curled up on her robe near me. Thus we lay silent; but I felt her shy gaze always upon me and suddenly I came back to complete wakefulness.
We stared wordlessly at each other until her gaze timidly dropped. With heart racing, I moved myself slowly toward her. I was afraid to frighten her; but she moved, not away, but to me. Abruptly my arms were around her.
Thus I found my habitable world and my mate—beyond which the legitimate needs of man do not go.