1
Peacefully ambling after her master, her mouth full of succulent, chewy apricot, Fasee was somewhat taken aback when the sand opened up, and swallowed the man called Baradir in one gulp.
She planted her sturdy feet in the changeful sands and waited for the ground to throw him back up again. But when every trace of her juicy mouthful was, regretfully, swallowed, the sand still lay smooth and undisturbed before her, and Baradir had not come back.
Hanee was worried. She drifted nearer to Talee and huddled close, for though Tal was not the eldest, she had always been the calmest of the three.
Talee, true to form, flicked an ear and stood unmoved.
‘Do you think he is coming back?’ said Fasee at length, when perhaps half an hour had passed by.
‘Yes,’ said Talee.
‘No,’ said Hanee.
‘When
