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"What do you want?" "Fosh-bal-soj sent me here to eat," replied Bradley. "Do you belong to Fosh-bal-soj?" asked the other. "That appears to be what he thinks," answered the Englishman. "Are you cos-ata-lu?" demanded the Wieroo. "Give me something to eat or I'll be all of that," replied Bradley. The Wieroo looked puzzled.
They lived in villages in the Galu country, and while the two peoples often warred, they held no hatred for one another. In those days each race came up from the beginning and there was great rivalry as to which was the higher in the scale of evolution. The Wieroo developed the first cos-ata-lu but they were always male never could they reproduce woman.
He also was cos-ata-lu, twelve moons older than I, and all our lives we have been together." Bradley remained silent. So she loved An-Tak. He hadn't the heart to tell her that An-Tak had died, or how. At the door of Fosh-bal-soj's storeroom they halted to listen. No sound came from within, and gently Bradley pushed open the door.
"Are you cos-ata-lu?" the creature asked. Bradley replied that he was and that all his kind were, as well as every living thing in his part of the world. "Can you tell me the secret?" asked the creature. Bradley hesitated and then, thinking to gain time, replied in the affirmative. "What is it?" demanded the Wieroo, leaning far forward and exhibiting every evidence of excited interest.
He learned that all but those who were cos-ata-lu came up cor-sva-jo, or from the beginning. The egg from which they first developed into tadpole form was deposited, with millions of others, in one of the warm pools and with it a poisonous serum that the carnivora instinctively shunned.
If an egg survives it goes through all the stages of development that man has passed through during the unthinkable eons since life first moved upon the earth's face. The final stage that which the Galus have almost attained and for which all hope is cos-ata-lu, which literally, means no-egg-man, or one who is born directly as are the young of the outer world of mammals.
"Tell me," he cried, "what is cos-ata-lu?" "Food!" whimpered An-Tak. Bradley bethought himself. His haversack had not been taken from him. In it besides his razor and knife were odds and ends of equipment and a small quantity of dried meat. He tossed a small strip of the latter to the starving Galu. An-Tak seized upon it and devoured it ravenously. It instilled new life in the man.
"Are your people cor-sva-jo or cos-ata-lu?" "I do not understand you," said Bradley; "and now suppose you answer a few questions. Who are you? What country is this? Why did you bring me here?" Again the sepulchral grimace. "We are Wieroos Luata is our father. Caspak is ours. This, our country, is called Oo-oh. He would know from whence you came and why; but principally if you be cos-ata-lu."
Now I am old and very weak. I am cos-ata-lu that is why they have not killed me. If I tell them the secret of becoming cos-ata-lu they will take me out; but how can I tell them that which Luata alone knows? "What is cos-ata-lu?" demanded Bradley. "Food! Food! There is a way out!" mumbled the Galu. Bradley strode across the floor, seized the man by his shoulders and shook him.
Some of the Galus produce cos-ata-lu and cos-ata-lo both; the Weiroos only cos-ata-lu in other words all Wieroos are born male, and so they prey upon the Galus for their women and sometimes capture and torture the Galu men who are cos-ata-lu in an endeavor to learn the secret which they believe will give them unlimited power over all other denizens of Caspak.
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