In the open water between the giant lily pads, great, dark bodies noisily churned the water into boils of foam and then vanished, only to reappear and shatter the calm surface somewhere else a hundred feet away. A herd of some enormous, feeding animals were disporting themselves, wallowing and splashing in the relative shallows near shore, and as they rose and sank, small waves rolled up the gentle beach and the huge round leaves of the lilies dipped and rocked on the water, set in uneasy motion.
Hiero sat down with a sigh to watch. His hopes of a clean bath in the sea were obviously doomed to postponement. Even allowing for the distortion of night, any one of those things down there would make four of Klootz, big as he was, Gorm and the morse sniffed the breeze in loud snorts, excited at the smells of the night and the noise of the sportive behemoths. Hiero bade them lie down and wait with him.
Presently one of the creatures emerged from the water and waddled out upon the sand directly below the watchers. It was huge, long, and low, balanced on four short, sturdy legs, each with three wide toes. There was a great, blunt head, shaped like a long-snouted keg. It yawned suddenly, displaying a pale gullet in the moonlight, which also glinted on huge tusks set at each corner of the gaping jaws. As the water ran off its great back in runnels, a short, plush coat of fur began to dry and give the animal a lighter shade of color. Something in looks like a cross between a pre-Death hog, a hippopotamus, and even a Brobdingnagian seal, what its ancestors had been was a mystery. It began to graze contentedly on some short-stemmed plants, and the contrast between its peaceable eating habits and otherwise horrendous demeanor made Hiero chuckle.
Faint as the sound was, the great beast heard it and its small ears flapped vigorously as it looked suspiciously about. Deciding the neighborhood was apparently dangerous, even though it could see nothing, it lumbered back into the water, twitching a tiny curled tail, and rejoined its fellows among the enormous lily pads.
Happening to glance beyond the herd and out to sea, the priest caught an even more wonderful sight, which left him dumb with amazement and awe.
From the quiet water out near the mouth of the bay, there soared into the moonlit night the black outline of a monster fish, long and slender with a sharp-pointed head, identical in appearance with the pike Hiero was used to hooking in every cool northern lake. For a fleeting instant he felt himself back in his piney wilderness looking at a leaping catch, not on the unknown shores of the warm sea of the South. Then, as he shook his head to clear his vision, the
