Page:The food of the gods, and how it came to earth.djvu/247

 ants?"

He repeated, "Did you not know?"

And she answered, with the growing amazement of realisation, "_No!_"

The whole world and all the meaning of the world was changing for her. A branch of chestnut slipped from her hand. "Do you mean to say," she repeated stupidly, "that there are other giants in the world? That some food--?"

He caught her amazement.

"You know nothing?" he cried. "You have never heard of us? You, whom the Food has made akin to us!"

There was terror still in the eyes that stared at him. Her hand rose towards her throat and fell again. She whispered, "_No_."

It seemed to her that she must weep or faint. Then in a moment she had rule over herself and she was speaking and thinking clearly. "All this has been kept from me," she said. "It is like a dream. I have dreamt--have dreamt such things. But waking--No. Tell me! Tell me! What are you? What is this Food of the Gods? Tell me slowly--and clearly. Why have they kept it from me, that I am not alone?"

II.
"Tell me," she said, and young Redwood, tremulous and excited, set himself to tell her--it was poor and broken telling for a time--of the Food of the Gods and the giant children who were scattered over the world.

You must figure them both, flushed and s