She examined the cat and made certain that it would take some time to chew through the present cord. Never again should Bast escape if she could help it; there had been more than enough trouble last time. Assured of its safety, she brought a small bowl from the corner. Bast looked at the contents, sniffed with that reserve common to cats, and began to eat with no reserve whatever.
There had been some preliminary dietetic difficulties. Bast had firmly refused fungus food in any form. Margaret in a series of pictures which had excited general admiration, had succeeded in making the fact clear to the pygmy mind. This got them only a little farther, since it seemed that food and fungi were synonymous. Milk? But one could not draw a picture of milk. She tried her hand at a cow. It was not a success. Not only was it a bad picture of the 'square-animal-with-a-leg-at-each-corner' variety, but it rested very heavily upon a religious corn. Only later, when she saw carvings of Hathor, did she realise that she had been on dangerous ground.
She thought again. What did cats eat? Of course, fish. This time enormous discussion was provoked. According to Garm's subsequent explanation, a question of precedence had arisen. Was it legitimate to feed the symbol of Bast upon the symbols of Hamhit? This embraced the practical question of which goddess had the more powerful means of advertising her displeasure—for one of them must be displeased, since either cat or fish must die. The puzzle was at length solved by the suggestion that there were many fish to be had, but only one cat. Hamhit might not grudge (or not miss) a few.
They had brought them. Unpleasant monstrosities caught in the subterranean rivers, and unlike any Margaret had ever seen. White and eyeless, born of a million generations blind in the darkness. One eel-like creature among them found particular favour with Bast.
Reassured by the cat's appetite, she could now turn to her own food. She had grown used to the monotonous diet, and was able to eat the mess of chopped fungi with much the same indifference as she would have taken bread at home. Garm sat down near her, dipped a stone cup into a bowl of spirit and sipped from it. The bowl was there for his particular benefit. Margaret had tried the stuff once only; she classified it several stages below that inferior vodka which is made from bread. Garm evidently enjoyed it; he took several sips before settling down to resume 'yesterday's' broken conversation. His particular interest at the moment centred in the treatment of animals. Though his experience of them was limited to a few cats, dogs, rats, and other small creatures which had somehow found their ways below, he knew of others from pictures and carvings.
Preliminary misunderstandings had been lessened by now. Margaret had succeeded in dispelling the idea that a cow consisted of a bovine head mounted upon a female human torso. The old man found this revolutionary, but not incredible; he had already been troubled by the difference between a live dog and the classical figure of Anubis.
'You do not worship animals?' he asked.
'No,' Margaret said. 'At least, not in our country,' she amended.
'And the gods are not angry?'
'I don't think so. You see, ours are different gods.'
Garm considered the point. The idea of gods unasso-ciated with animals was difficult, but he managed it.
'Then, since you are not afraid of the gods and the animals must eat much food, why do you not kill all those animals you do not wish to eat?'
'We make them work for us.'
'But you talked of special metal creatures you had made to work for you—far stronger than men or animals.'
'Yes, but for some things it is cheaper to employ animals than machines.'
Garm looked wonderingly at Bast.
'And what do cats do for you?'
'They catch mice.'
'What are mice?'
Margaret groaned privately and started to explain. That was always the trouble with these conversations. There were so few points of contact that everything was continually being interrupted by the most trivial explanations. Moreover, she was tired of the status of animals, and wanted to change the subject. But that was not Garm's way; he got his teeth into a topic, and worried at it. Soon he succeeded in finding out, to his great satisfaction, that there was a class of animals, known as pets, which did no work, and, furthermore, that a society for protecting the rights of animals was upheld chiefly by the supporters of these parasites. He seemed to regard this as the beginning of a return to grace.
'It shows,' he said, 'that they are beginning again to worship animals.'
'It doesn't—it shows sublimation,' Margaret objected.
Sublimation took some explaining, but he got it at last. Instead of resenting the idea, he welcomed it, and plunged forthwith into a number of incomprehensible statements about the relationship of religion with sublimation, from which he emerged with the idea of increasing animal worship somehow strengthened.
'They keep animals, pets, you call them, for no obvious reason. That means that they must find something in the animals which they cannot find elsewhere. That is the divine spirit. Knowing of this divine spirit, they band together into a noble society to preach it, so that others may recognise it.'
'No. You don't understand. There's nothing divine about it.—in fact, they say that animals have no souls.'
Garm looked momentarily shocked by the heresy.
'But they live.'
'Of course, but our people say that only human beings have souls.'
'Why?'
Margaret was forced to admit that she did not know why. Garm became triumphant.
'It means that your people are beginning to regain faith. Soon they will admit that animals have souls. In their hearts they must know it already. If they did not, is it likely they would spend so much time and wealth upon animals?'
'Quite likely,' Margaret thought.
'No, you do not understand. I mean, if they thought animals to be soulless, they would obviously spend for the good of men whom they know to have souls. It would be waste to do otherwise.
'You say your world is in difficulties. It is not surprising, for you have spurned the gods. But now that their servants are once more being recognised, the gods will smile again upon you.'
'Oh,' said Margaret.
The idea of world redemption through the R.S.P.C.A. was novel, even if it inspired little faith.
Garm, with the status of animals settled to his satisfaction, became approachable on other subjects. She inquired for news.
'Have there been any more breaks?'
'No,' he told her. No more breaks, but two airshafts had had to be stopped when the water came trickling in.
So the New Sea was still rising. Margaret wondered how long the great pipes at Qabes would continue to pour out their millions of gallons. There had been no bad break for some little time, but it was an ever-present possibility. The weight of water was slowly and relentlessly finding out the weak spots, and driving through. So far they had beaten it by blocking the passages, but one by one the air inlets were being covered. How many of those hundreds of small fissures, which were the caves' natural ventilating system, could they spare before the air would thicken unbreathably? Each time that she heard that there was one less, it seemed to her that the caves became a little more stuffy. It looked like being a question which would deal the final blow, suffocation, or drowning?