I hurried back to the beach, and sat down before the seal and held the custard pie while the hungry creature ate it.
“Did you ever eat raw fish?” said he.
“I should say not,” said I.
“It’s awful,” said the seal. “It’s positively petrifying. You know I wasn’t always a seal. Custard pie always used to do me more good than anything else.”
“Tell me who you are,” said I, “and who the Ragpicker is.”
“There’s no time now,” said the seal. “You’d better be going. The people here would like to kill the Ragpicker if they could, but they’re afraid of the shadows; she’s afraid of the people, and the people are afraid of the shadows; and she’s more afraid of the One-Armed Sorcerer than anybody else, though between you and me I think she’s wrong about it, because he seems to be a pretty decent sort of old chap, and I rather believe he’d like to help her if she wasn’t afraid of him; but of course you can’t help a person who’s afraid of you. All mixed up, isn’t it?”
“I don’t understand a word of it,” said I.
“Brave people are always stupid,” said the seal, and with this he wriggled himself off into the water, and I saw his head going back and forth slowly from side to side across the cove.
I turned and went into the village. It was now nearly dark.
As I came toward the pastry cook’s shop again, the village cryer came walking down the street, ringing a bell, and calling out, over and over again, “Seven o’clock, and time for supper! Seven o’clock, and time for supper!”