lichens had hardly shown their stains upon the rocks, and man still raised
himself upwards with difficulty because the sinews in his thighs were weak.
In those days, which men reck not of now, man, when he hungered, fed on the
flesh of his fellow man and found it sweet. Yet even in those days it came
to pass that there was one whose head was higher than her fellows and her
thought keener, and, as she picked the flesh from a human skull, she
pondered. And so it came to pass the next night, when men were gathered
around the fire ready to eat, that she stole away, and when they went to
the tree where the victim was bound, they found him gone. And they cried
one to another, 'She, only she, has done this, who has always said, 'I like
not the taste of man-flesh; men are too like me; I cannot eat them.' 'She
is mad,' they cried; 'let us kill her!' So, in those dim, misty times that
men reck not of now, that they hardly believe in, that woman died. But in
the heads of certain men and women a new thought had taken root; they said,
'We also will not eat of her. There is something evil in the taste of
human flesh.' And ever after, when the fleshpots were filled with man-
flesh, these stood aside, and half the tribe ate human flesh and half not;
then, as the years passed, none ate.

"Even in those days, which men reck not of now, when men fell easily open
their hands and knees, they were of us on the earth. And, if you would
learn a secret, even before man trod here, in the days when the dicynodont
bent yearningly over her young, and the river-horse which you find now
nowhere on earth's surface, save buried in stone, called with love to his
mate; and the birds whose footprints are on the rocks flew in the sunshine
calling joyfully to one another--even in those days when man was not, the
fore-dawn of this kingdom had broken on the earth. And still as the sun
rises and sets and the planets journey round, we grow and grow."

The stranger rose from the fire, and stood upright: around him, and behind