        Lyra’s hopes fell as the creature examined the weapons.  At first, it seemed it wasn’t sure what to make of them.  She had thought that the metal objects it had held during their first contact indicated it had experience with metalwork, but now she was more convinced it had been given those object by its master.  Surely it shouldn’t take five minutes of examination to identify a spear blade—unless these creatures had no natural enemies.  But that thought was ridiculous: if it had no natural enemies, why was it frightened of them?