very big one.'

They had all turned to face the danger.

'Don't be silly little duffers,' said the Psammead in its friendly,
informal way; 'it's not a river-horse. It's a human.'

It was. It was a girl--of about Anthea's age. Her hair was short and
fair, and though her skin was tanned by the sun, you could see that it
would have been fair too if it had had a chance. She had every chance of
being tanned, for she had no clothes to speak of, and the four English
children, carefully dressed in frocks, hats, shoes, stockings, coats,
collars, and all the rest of it, envied her more than any words of
theirs or of mine could possibly say. There was no doubt that here was
the right costume for that climate.

She carried a pot on her head, of red and black earthenware. She did not
see the children, who shrank back against the edge of the jungle, and
she went forward to the brink of the river to fill her pitcher. As she
went she made a strange sort of droning, humming, melancholy noise
all on two notes. Anthea could not help thinking that perhaps the girl
thought this noise was singing.

The girl filled the pitcher and set it down by the river bank. Then
she waded into the water and stooped over the circle of cut reeds. She
pulled half a dozen fine fish out of the water within the reeds, killing
each as she took it out, and threading it on a long osier that she
carried. Then she knotted the osier, hung it on her arm, picked up the
pitcher, and turned to come back. And as she turned she saw the four
children. The white dresses of Jane and Anthea stood out like snow
against the dark forest background. She screamed and the pitcher fell,
and the water was spilled out over the hard mud surface and over the
fish, which had fallen too. Then the water slowly trickled away into the
deep cracks.

'Don't be frightened,' Anthea cried, 'we won't hurt you.'

'Who are you?' said the girl.

Now, once for all, I am not going to be bothered to tell you how it was
that the girl could understand Anthea and Anthea could understand the
girl. YOU, at any rate, would not understand ME, if I tried to explain
it, any more than you can understand about time and space being only
forms of thought. You may think what you like. Perhaps the children
had found out the universal language which everyone can understand, and
which wise men so far have not found. You will have noticed long ago
that they were singularly lucky children, and they may have had th