outcasts envious of the House of Kong, and, perchance, the irritation
brought on by a too lavish indulgence in your favourite dish of stewed
mouse.

Having thus re-established himself in the clear-sighted affection of
an ever mild and perfect father, and cleansed the ground of all
possible misunderstandings in the future, this person will concede the
fact that, not to stand beneath the faintest shadow of an implied
blemish in your sympathetic eyes, he had no sooner understood the
attitude in which he had been presented than he at once plunged into
the virtuous society of a band of the sombre and benevolent.

These, so far as his intelligence enables him to grasp the position,
may be reasonably accepted as the barbarian equivalent of those very
high-minded persons who in our land devote their whole lives secretly
to killing others whom they consider the chief deities do not really
approve of; for although they are not permitted here, either by
written law or by accepted custom, to perform these meritorious
actions, they are so intimately initiated into the minds and councils
of the Upper Ones that they are able to pronounce very severe
judgments of torture--a much heavier penalty than merely being
assassinated--upon all who remain outside their league. As some of the
most objurgatory of these alliances do not number more than a score of
persons, it is inevitable that the ultimate condition of the whole
barbarian people must be hazardous in the extreme.

Having associated myself with this class sufficiently to escape their
vindictive pronouncements, and freely professed an unswerving
adherence to their rites, I next sought out the priests of other
altars, intending by a seemly avowal to each in turn to safeguard my