sun is at the edge of the sky and all red, and the shadows are long, and the dark is coming, do you hurry to us, always. That will be supper.”
“That is well,” said the Troglodyte, like a true knight.
Then she drew the stick a long way round.
“This is sleep,” she said. “This place here is waking, and breakfast. And then next the sun will be at the top of the sky again. And we will have dinner in the same fashion. And this is right for you. But what to do with the child I don’t know, unless I keep her practising from the time the sun is at the top of the sky until it is at the bottom. For if she can’t play when she grows up, what will people think?”
Now, while she said this, the Prehistoric Woman had been sitting with the stick on which the flesh had been roasted held straight up in her fingers, resting in the middle of the ring which she had made in the salt. And by now the moon was high and white in the sky. And the Man saw that the moon-shadow of the stick fell on the circle from its centre to beyond its edge. And presently he stretched out his hand and took the stick from her, and held it so and sat very still, thinking, thinking, thinking. . . .
