sound.

For a moment it might have been an ordinary light, fatal as even that
could very well be at such a moment as this; but when it began to
follow them like an eye and to grow redder and redder as it watched
them, then even optimism despaired.

And Sippy very unwisely attempted flight, and Slorg even as unwisely
tried to hide; but Slith, knowing well why that light was lit in that
secret chamber and _who_ it was that lit it, leaped over the edge of
the World and is falling from us still through the unreverberate
blackness of the abyss.



THE INJUDICIOUS PRAYERS OF POMBO THE IDOLATER


Pombo the idolater had prayed to Ammuz a simple prayer, a necessary
prayer, such as even an idol of ivory could very easily grant, and
Ammuz has not immediately granted it. Pombo had therefore prayed to
Tharma for the overthrow of Ammuz, an idol friendly to Tharma, and in
doing this offended against the etiquette of the gods. Tharma refused
to grant the little prayer. Pombo prayed frantically to all the gods
of idolatry, for though it was a simple matter, yet it was very
necessary to a man. And gods that were older than Ammuz rejected the
prayers of Pombo, and even gods that were younger and therefore of
greater repute. He prayed to them one by one, and they all refused to
hear him; nor at first did he think at all of the subtle, divine
etiquette against which he had offended. It occurred to him all at