and very wise, and I shall be adding wisdom to wisdom as I turn
your head in the smoke."

So a litter was made, and, borne on the shoulders of half a dozen
of the men, Bassett departed on the last little adventure that was
to cap the total adventure, for him, of living. With a body of
which he was scarcely aware, for even the pain had been exhausted
out of it, and with a bright clear brain that accommodated him to a
quiet ecstasy of sheer lucidness of thought, he lay back on the
lurching litter and watched the fading of the passing world,
beholding for the last time the breadfruit tree before the devil-
devil house, the dim day beneath the matted jungle roof, the gloomy
gorge between the shouldering mountains, the saddle of raw
limestone, and the mesa of black volcanic sand.

Down the spiral path of the pit they bore him, encircling the
sheening, glowing Red One that seemed ever imminent to iridesce
from colour and light into sweet singing and thunder. And over
bones and logs of immolated men and gods they bore him, past the
horrors of other immolated ones that yet lived, to the three-king-
post tripod and the huge king-post striker.

Here Bassett, helped by Ngurn and Balatta, weakly sat up, swaying
weakly from the hips, and with clear, unfaltering, all-seeing eyes
gazed upon the Red One.

"Once, O Ngurn," he said, not taking his eyes from the sheening,
vibrating surface whereon and wherein all the shades of cherry-red
played unceasingly, ever a-quiver to change into sound, to become
silken rustlings, silvery whisperings, golden thrummings of cords,