"Will no new thing be?"

And in Their weariness the gods said: "Ah! to be young again. Ah! to be
fresh once more from the brain of _Mana-Yood-Sushai_."

And They turned away Their eyes in weariness from all the gleaming
worlds and laid Them down upon Pegana's floor, for They said:

"It may be that the worlds shall pass and we would fain forget them."

Then the gods slept. Then did the comet break loose from his moorings
and the eclipse roamed about the sky, and down on the earth did Death's
three children--Famine, Pestilence, and Drought--come out to feed. The
eyes of the Famine were green, and the eyes of the Drought were red,
but the Pestilence was blind and smote about all round him with his
claws among the cities.

But as the gods slept, there came from beyond the Rim, out of the dark
and unknown, three Yozis, spirits of ill, that sailed up the river of
Silence in galleons with silver sails. Far away they had seen Yum and
Gothum, the stars that stand sentinel over Pegana's gate, blinking and
falling asleep, and as they neared Pegana they found a hush wherein the
gods slept heavily. Ya, Ha, and Snyrg were these three Yozis, the lords
of evil, madness, and of spite. When they crept from their galleons and
stole over Pegana's silent threshold it boded ill for the gods. There
in Pegana lay the gods asleep, and in a corner lay the Power of the
gods alone upon the floor, a thing wrought of black rock and four words
graven upon it, whereof I might not give thee any clue, if even I
should find it--four words of which none knoweth. Some say they tell of