effected, Hyoi spoke softly to him and said, without taking his eyes off the current:
"There is an eldil coming to us over the water."
Ransom could see nothing - or nothing that he could distinguish from imagination and the dance of sunlight on the lake. A moment later Hyoi spoke again, but not to him.
"What is it, sky-born?"
What happened next was the most uncanny experience Ransom had yet had on Malacandra. He heard the voice. It seemed to come out of the air, about a yard above his head, and it was almost an octave higher than the hross's - higher even than his own. He realized that a very little difference in his ear would have made the eldil as inaudible to him as it was invisible.
"It is the Man with you, Hyoi," said the voice. "He ought not to be there. He ought to be going to Oyarsa. Bent hnau of his own kind from Thulcandra are following him; he should go to Oyarsa. If they fid him anywhere else there will be evil."
"He hears you, sky-born," said Hyoi. "And have you no message for my wife? You know what she wishes to be told."
"I have a message for Hleri," said the eldil. "But you will not be able to take it. I go to her now myself. All that is well. Only - let the Man go to Oyarsa."
There was a moment's silence.
"He is gone," said Whin. "And we have lost our share in the hunt."
"Yes," said Hyoi with a sigh. "We must put Hman ashore and teach him the way to Meldilorn."
Ransom was not so sure of his courage but that one part of him felt an instant relief at the idea of any diversion from their present business. But the other part of him urged him to hold on to his new-found manhood; now or never - with such companions or with none - he must leave a deed on his memory instead of one more broken dream. It was in obedience to something like conscience that he exclaimed:
"No, no. There is time for that after the hunt. We must kill the hnakra first."
"Once an eldil has spoken," began Hyoi, when suddenly Whin gave a great cry (a 'bark' Ransom would have called it three weeks ago) and pointed. There, not a furlong away, was the torpedo-like track of foam; and now, visible through a wall of foam, they caught the metallic glint of the monster's sides. Whin was paddling furiously. Hyoi threw and missed. As his first spear smote the water his second was already in the air. This time it must have touched the hnakra. He wheeled right out of the current. Ransom saw the great black pit of his mouth twice open and twice shut with its snap of shark-like teeth. He himself had thrown now -hurriedly, excitedly, with unpractised hand.
"Back," shouted Hyoi to Whin who was already backing water with every pound of his vast strength. Then all became confused. He heard Whin shout "Shore!" There came a shock that flung him forward almost into the hnakra's jaws and he found himself at the same moment up to his waist in water. It was at him the teeth were snapping. Then as he flung shaft after shaft into the great cavern of the gaping brute he saw Hyoi perched incredibly on its back - on its nose - bending forward and hurling from there. Almost at once the hross was dislodged and fell with a wide splash nearly ten yards away. But the hnakra was killed. It was wallowing on its side, bubbling out its black life. The water around him was dark and stank.
When he recollected himself they were all on shore, wet, steaming, trembling with exertion and embracing one another. It did not now seem strange to him to be clasped to a breast of wet fur. The breath of the hrossa, which, though sweet, was not human breath, did not offend him. He was one with them. That difficulty which they, accustomed to more than one rational species, had perhaps never felt, was now overcome. They were all hnau. They had stood shoulder to shoulder in the face of an enemy, and the shapes of their heads no longer mattered. And he, even Ransom, had come through it and not been disgraced. He had grown up.
They were on a little promontory free of forest, on which they had run aground in the confusion of the fight.