Out Of The Silent Planet - By C. S. Lewis Page 0,61

however, too large for this operation and the necklace merely settled on its forehead like a crown, slightly over one eye. It shifted its head a little, like a dog worried with flies, snorted gently, and resumed its sleep.

Oyarsa's voice now addressed Ransom. "Are your fellow-creatures hurt in their brains, Ransom of Thulcandra?", it said. "Or are they too much afraid to answer my questions?"

"I think, Oyarsa," said Ransom, "that they do not believe you are there. And they believe that all these hnau are - are like very young cubs. The thicker hman is trying to frighten them and then to please them with gifts."

At the sound of Ransom's voice the two prisoners turned sharply around. Weston was about to speak when Ransom interrupted him hastily in English:

"Listen, Weston. It is not a trick. There really is a creature there in the middle - there where you can see a kind of light, or a kind of something, if you look hard. And it is at least as intelligent as a man - they seem to live an enormous time. Stop treating it like a child and answer its questions. And if you take my advice, you'll speak the truth and not bluster."

"The brutes seem to have intelligence enough to take you in, anyway," growled Weston; but it was in a somewhat modified voice that he turned once more to the sleeping hross - the desire to wake up the supposed witchdoctor was becoming an obsession - and addressed it.

"We sorry we kill him," he said, pointing to Hyoi. "No go to kill him. Sorns tell us bring man, give him your big head. We got away back into sky. He come" (here he indicated Ransom) "with us. He very bent man, run away, no do what sorns say like us. We run after him, get him back for sorns, want to do what we say and sorns tell us, see? He not let us. Run away, run, run. We run after. See a big black one, think he kill us, we kill him - pouff! bang!

All for bent man. He no run away, he be good, we no run after, no kill big black one, see? You have bent man - bent man make all trouble - you plenty keep him, let us go. He afraid of you, we no afraid. Listen -"

At this moment Weston's continual bellowing in the face of the hross at last produced the effect he had striven for so long. The creature opened its eyes and stared mildly at him in some perplexity. Then, gradually realizing the impropriety of which it had been guilty, it rose slowly to its standing position, bowed respectfully to Oyarsa, and finally waddled out of the assembly still carrying the necklace draped over its right ear and eye. Weston, his mouth still open, followed the retreating figure with his gaze till it vanished among the stems of the grove.

It was Oyarsa who broke the silence. "We have had mirth enough," he said, "and it is time to hear true answers to our questions. Something is wrong in your head, hnau from Thulcandra. There is too much blood in it. Is Firikitekila here?"

"Here, Oyarsa," said a pfifltrigg.

"Have you in your cisterns water that has been made cold?"

"Yes, Oyarsa."

"Then let this thick hnau be taken to the guest-house and let them bathe his head in cold water. Much water and many times. Then bring him again. Meanwhile I will provide for my killed hrossa."

Weston did not clearly understand what the voice said - indeed, he was still too busy trying to find out where it came from - but terror smote him as he found himself wrapped in the strong arms of the surrounding hrossa and forced away from his place. Ransom would gladly have shouted out some reassurance, but Weston himself was shouting too loud to hear him. He was mixing English and Malacandrian now, and the last that was heard was a rising scream of "Pay for this - pouff! bang! - Ransom, for God's sake - Ransom! Ransom!"

"And now," said Oyarsa, when silence was restored, "let us honour my dead hnau."

At his words ten of the hrossa grouped themselves about the biers. Lifting their heads, and with no signal given as far as Ransom could see, they began to sing.

To every man, in his acquaintance with a new art, there comes a moment when that which before was meaningless first lifts, as it were, one corner