by with their neckless thick heads and long white legs, the short forepaws expressive of astonishment. And of all the creatures in the vicinity, bar none, it seemed to me they had it best, and I envied them myself. "So don't tell me! It's the frogs?" I said to Itelo. "They keep you from watering the cattle?" He shook his head with melancholy. Yes, it was the frogs. "How did they ever get in here? Where do they come from?" These questions Itelo couldn't answer. The whole thing was a mystery. All he could tell me was that these creatures, never before seen, had appeared in the cistern about a month ago and prevented the cattle from being watered. This was the curse mentioned before. "You call this a curse?" I said. "But you've been out in the world. Didn't they ever show you a frog at school--at least a picture of one? These are just harmless." "Oh, yes, sure," said the prince. "So you know you don't have to let your animals die because a few of these beasts are in the water." But about this he could do nothing. He put up his large hands and said, "Mus' be no ahnimal in drink wattah." "Then why don't you get rid of them?" "Oh, no, no. Nevah touch ahnimal in drink wattah." "Oh, come on, Prince, pish-posh," I said. "We could filter them out. We could poison them. There are a hundred things we could do." He took his lip in his teeth and shut his eyes, meanwhile making loud exhalations to show how impossible my suggestions were. He blew the air through his nostrils and shook his head. "Prince," I said, "let's you and I talk this over." I grew very intense. "Before long if this keeps up the town is going to be one continuous cow funeral. Rain isn't likely. The season is over. You need water. You've got this reserve of it." I lowered my voice. "Look here, I'm kind of an irrational person myself, but survival is survival." "Oh, sir," said the prince, "the people is frightened. Nobody have evah see such a ahnimal." "Well," I said, "the last plague of frogs I ever heard about was in Egypt." This reinforced the feeling of antiquity the place had given me from the very first. Anyway it was due to this curse that the people, led by that maiden, had greeted me with tears by the wall of the town. It was nothing if not extraordinary. So now, when everything fitted together, the tranquil water of the cistern became as black to my eyes as the lake of darkness. There really was a vast number of these creatures woggling and crowding, stroking along with the water slipping over their backs and their mottles, as if they owned the medium. And also they crawled out and thrummed on the wet stone with congested, emotional throats, and blinked with their peculiarly marbled eyes, red and green and white, and I shook my head much more at myself than at them, thinking that a damned fool going out into the world is bound and fated to encounter damned fool phenomena. Nevertheless, I told those creatures, just wait, you little sons of bitches, you'll croak in hell before I'm done.
VI
The gnats were spinning over the sun-warmed cistern, which was green and yellow and dark by turns. I said to Itelo, "You're not allowed to molest these animals, but what if a stranger came along--me for instance--and took them on for you?" I realized that I would never rest until I had dealt with these creatures and lifted the plague. From his attitude I could tell that under some unwritten law he was not allowed to encourage me in my purpose, but that he and all the rest of the Arnewi would consider me their very greatest benefactor. For Itelo would not answer directly but kept sighing and repeating, "Oh, a very sad time. 'Strodinary bad time." And I then gave him a deep look and said, "Itelo, you leave this to me," and drew in a sharp breath between my teeth, feeling that I had it in me to be the doom of those frogs. You understand, the Arnewi are milk-drinkers exclusively and the cows are their entire livelihood; they never eat meat except ceremonially whenever a cow meets a natural death, and even this they consider a form of cannibalism and they eat in tears. Therefore