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are they like this?" And he pulled a silver whistle from his pocket and, placing it to his lips, blew two short, shrill notes.
Immediately a peculiar patter sounded down the corridor; a ka- tuck, ka-tuck, ka-tuck, not unlike galloping hoof-beats. Before Watson could do any surmising a little bundle of shining black, rounded the entrance to the room and ran up to them. Geos picked it up.
It was a horse. A horse, beautifully formed, perfect as an Arab, and not more than nine inches high!
Now, Chick had been in the Blind Spot, conscious, but a short while. He knew that he was in the precise position that Rhamda Avec had occupied that morning on the ferry-boat. Chick recalled the pictures of the Lilliputian deer and the miniature kittens; yet he was immensely surprised.
The little fellow began to neigh, a tiny, ridiculous sound as compared with the blast of a normal-sized horse, and began to paw for the edge of the table.
"What does he want?"
"A drink. They will do anything for it." Geos pressed a button, and in a moment he had another goblet. This he held before the little stallion, who thrust his head in above his nostrils and drank as greedily as a Percheron weighing a ton. Watson stroked his sides; the mane was like spun silk, he felt the legs symmetrical, perfectly shaped, not as large above the fetlocks as an ordinary pencil.
"Are they all of this size?"
"Yes; all of them. Why do you ask?"
"Because"--seeing no harm in telling this--"as I remember them, a horse on the other side would make a thousand of this one. People ride them."
The Rhamda nodded.
"So it is told in the books of Jarados. We had such beasts, once, ourselves. We would have them still, but for the brutality and stupidity of our ancestors. It is the one great sin of the Thomahlia. Once we had animals, great and small, and all the blessings of Nature; we had horses and, I think, what you call beef; a thousand other creatures that were food and help and companions to man.