The sixth Marinoid—he who had shouted the order—was hastily gathering long, rope-like segments of the vegetation. At his command, Nona and I were raised upright. The women came down to the sand and they all inspected us curiously, talking among themselves with words to us unintelligible, but gestures which seemed wholly rational.
At last they bound our arms tightly against our sides and started us walking along the sand. They were leading us away, out over the sandy open spaces toward a line of hills in the distance.
The women swam above us; the men walked in a group, pushing Nona and me in front. We could run faster than they, and once we broke away. But they swam after us and caught us in an instant. And one of them warned us with a gesture which was unmistakable.
Soon I saw what this party had been doing before they encountered us. We passed occasionally, huge receptacles made seemingly of woven sea-vegetation. Into these baskets they had gathered various living, shell-backed creatures of the water-bottom. And these baskets in turn would be gathered up and carted away by other Marinoids.
I learned this later; Nona and I understood none of it at the time.
As we advanced, the aspect of things around us changed continually. The vegetation grew thicker, until soon we were in a veritable forest of it. And we seemed to be following a road—a pathway which had been cleared.
Abruptly I heard a shout ahead. The Marinoid women swimming above us came suddenly down. Our leader said something, and they all drew back from the road, pulling us with them.
The shout ahead of us grew louder. A moving object came into view—a sort of sleigh made of a huge shell. It was gliding over the sandy road toward us, pulled by a strange swimming animal.
In the sleigh were two Marinoid men—the larger of them elaborately clothed. The sleigh halted abreast of us. The smaller of its occupants stood up and shouted vehemently. And suddenly I realized that he was shouting at me! My captors were lying prone on the sand, and had pulled Nona down with them. But in their excitement and awe—for this was the ruler of their world—they had left me standing alone.
I stared stupidly at the angry figure in the sleigh; and suddenly, in his wrath at the effrontery of my upright posture before his Monarch, he launched something at me. I saw it leave his hand. It was long, thin and pointed. It came through the water like a spear thrown through the air. It hit my head a glancing blow.