"Are they?"
"No."
"But that is what Caterham says! He would have us live out our lives, die one by one, till only one remains, and that one at last would die also, and they would cut down all the giant plants and weeds, kill all the giant underlife, burn out the traces of the Food-make an end to us and to the Food forever. Then the little pygmy world would be safe. They would go on-safe for ever, living their little pygmy lives, doing pygmy kindnesses and pygmy cruelties each to the other; they might even perhaps attain a sort of pygmy millennium, make an end to war, make an end to over-population, sit down in a world-wide city to practise pygmy arts, worshipping one another till the world begins to freeze. . . ."
In the corner a sheet of iron fell in thunder to the ground.
"Brothers, we know what we mean to do."
In a spluttering of light from the searchlights Redwood saw earnest youthful faces turning to his son.
"It is easy now to make the Food. It would be easy for us to make Food for all the world."
"You mean, Brother Redwood," said a voice out of the darkness, "that it is for the little people to eat the Food."
"What else is there to do?"
"We are not half a hundred and they are many millions."
"But we held our own."
"So far."
"If it is God's will, we may still hold our own."
300
