He loads the dice, scratches the cards,Hoists us up by our own petards;And when low music thrills the banquet halls,His shadow like a silent spectre fallsIn grotesque imagery upon the walls.A mad child left an empire's mightThe kingdom of the day and nightAnd as he babbles on the palace floor,He listens to the silver thunder roarLike troubled seas upon some distant shore.With froth upon a sensual lip,He sinks in play some crowded ship.Then lightly in an idle mood of mirthAs though it were a trinket of no worthDown starry skies he flings some living earth.Life's roulette table stops for himTo any cackling vagrant whim.His own police are venal, full of doubt;Indeed the cheapest little racetrack toutKnows more what sportsmanship is all about.His gold face and his jet black hairThe jewels his madness makes him wear.His laws, a madman's ironyThe moon his mask above the seaSome morning he will turn his vacant eyesAnd see the sun with jealous new surpriseAnd on the following day it will not rise.
He loads the dice, scratches the cards,Hoists us up by our own petards;And when low music thrills the banquet halls,His shadow like a silent spectre fallsIn grotesque imagery upon the walls.
A mad child left an empire's mightThe kingdom of the day and nightAnd as he babbles on the palace floor,He listens to the silver thunder roarLike troubled seas upon some distant shore.
With froth upon a sensual lip,He sinks in play some crowded ship.Then lightly in an idle mood of mirthAs though it were a trinket of no worthDown starry skies he flings some living earth.
Life's roulette table stops for himTo any cackling vagrant whim.His own police are venal, full of doubt;Indeed the cheapest little racetrack toutKnows more what sportsmanship is all about.
His gold face and his jet black hairThe jewels his madness makes him wear.His laws, a madman's ironyThe moon his mask above the seaSome morning he will turn his vacant eyesAnd see the sun with jealous new surpriseAnd on the following day it will not rise.
And when the last sound had gone howling by and tumbled into the bottomless pit of silence, Gud held his breath, and even Fidu ceased to breathe and listened ... and listened for the echo that was still ... and it was as quiet as the missing link, as silent as a broken heart, as mute as a withered violet in a virgin's dream.
Gud had traveled many infinite distances since he had seen any sign of matter or mind or spirits. In this region things were not merely dead! they were absolutely non-existent, and Gud became a trifle lonesome.
He was in his ghostly incognito, for he always traveled lightly in vacuous and doubtful regions. To sojourn as an immaterial spirit among material beings gives one a sense of power, for what could be more glorious than to see without eyes, hear without ears, ring bells without hands or kick over tables without feet? But it is a very dull business to journey along as a spirit in absolute nothingness.
Indeed it is a business as dull as a Latin conjugation. So Gud now realized that he was sensing something with his seventh sense, which was more acute than the canine instinct of the Underdog and almost as unerring as a woman's intuition.
This seventh sense told Gud that he had entered a spiritual realm, and he became aware of a black ghost of a white cat with one ghoulish unseeing eye, sitting on the shadow of a back fence echoing a diabolical howl.
Gud could not hear the ghost cat howl, but he knew that it was howling because with his seventh sense he felt the vibration of its howl quivering through the impalpable and ghostly ether.
The howl of the ghost cat petrified Gud's gall, for he sensed that the creature had nine notches on its tail; hence would never live again, and had nothing to howl about.
So Gud picked up a stone and threw it at the ghost cat, but he aimed high, and the stone, passing through a bush of credulity, killed two birds of promise; whereupon the ghost cat ceased to howl.
As Gud went on he became aware of ghosts strolling about among the ruins of nothing.
And Gud said to the ghosts: "Where is your king?"
And the ghosts replied to Gud: "We have no king."
"Then," said Gud, "I would be told of your form of government."
But the ghosts answered: "Our government has no form because we have no government."
"Then," said Gud, "I would meet your doctors or lawyers or great and famous ghosts."
And they made answer that they had none.
"Then," said Gud, "I would be told of your religion and learn of your faith."
Said the ghosts: "We have no religion and no faith, for we are too immaterial to sin; and are therefore without fear of death, and thus need no religion and no faith."
"Then," said Gud, "this is a dull place. What do you call it?"
Replied the ghosts, who had a very long time to live: "We have no name for the place, but we are very happy here."
When Gud learned that this place was nameless, he whistled for his Underdog and they went on and passed through an impalpable fog of etheric vibrations, and over a great gulf of sublimated emptiness, and through a dark forest of neglected memories, and across a sandless desert swept by a breathless wind.
The graveyard of the gods is silent under a heavy sky,Where all the gods who never lived are buried when they die.Pale angels kneel beside the graves, stretching row on row,And madmen carrying mouldy flowers quickly come and go.A withered lily in her hand Saint Any-One-At-All,With pale, thin fingers opens the gate in an ivied wall.Her face an open wound of wonder, bleeding with defeat,And as she walks, the shining snow crunches under her feet.The ghosts of trees reach icy arms up to a starless sky,Mourning the gods who never were that rest here when they die.Pale angels kneel beside the graves stretching row on row,And madmen carrying mouldy flowers quickly come and go.
The graveyard of the gods is silent under a heavy sky,Where all the gods who never lived are buried when they die.
Pale angels kneel beside the graves, stretching row on row,And madmen carrying mouldy flowers quickly come and go.
A withered lily in her hand Saint Any-One-At-All,With pale, thin fingers opens the gate in an ivied wall.
Her face an open wound of wonder, bleeding with defeat,And as she walks, the shining snow crunches under her feet.
The ghosts of trees reach icy arms up to a starless sky,Mourning the gods who never were that rest here when they die.
Pale angels kneel beside the graves stretching row on row,And madmen carrying mouldy flowers quickly come and go.
Having passed through the graveyard of the gods, Gud came to a vast beyond where there really was nothing, when the gods are dead there can be nothing. And so Gud journeyed on, for he would not stop at nothing, and he came to a church, because it was Saturday night.
Crouched by the steps of the church was a poor old skeptic begging alms of faith.
"Why do you beg?" asked Gud.
"Because I have need of faith," said the skeptic.
"If I should give you a great amount of faith, would you use it to destroy your doubts, or would you go out and proclaim it to others, and thus give it all away?"
"Try me," said the skeptic.
"Then believe that I am Gud."
"I will, if you can prove it to me!"
"What proof shall I offer you?" asked Gud. For while he knew that proof was not necessary to faith, yet he was willing to humor the poor old skeptic because he was so weighted down with his burden of doubts.
"If you be Gud," said the skeptic, "then you should know all things."
"And that I do."
"Very well," said the skeptic, "how mad is a wet hen?"
Whereupon Gud called down fire from the heaven of that place and smote the blasphemer so that he died.
But when Gud called down the fire that smote the skeptic, alas, he destroyed the church house also. The next morning when the sun arose, behold the spot where the church had been was a greensward of two-bladed grass. But presently worshippers came and seated themselves upon the grass and lifted up their eyes in prayer.
Gud did not wait to see who answered their prayers, for he had gone on into a realm where the nights are as cold as greed, and where little stars are born—and comets, like tadpoles, lose their tails, and burst into shining suns.
And yet again Gud passed on beyond all stars and on and on until he reached the limits of thoughts, beyond which were only dim traces of imagination. And passing still on and ever on he came to a place where only the hope of faith abides, and lo, he was confronted here with a great wall of light.
And Gud knew—for he still knew all things—that this wall of light was the great and mighty wall that flings its shining reaches round about the City of the Forgotten Ghosts. These ghosts feared that dark memories, which were their only enemies, might find them out, so they had builded this mighty wall of light about their ghostly city.
But those who know all things need stop at nothing, and Gud, first casting off all memories that clung about him, kneeled down beside the wall of light and rubbed a little ring of pale intrusion. And behold a door of darkness opened in the wall of light. Gud arose and passed through the door of darkness in the wall of light. When he had passed through, the door of darkness closed behind him, and, having revoked all memories, Gud could not recall that it had been.
As Gud now journeyed through the outer environs of the City of the Forgotten Ghosts, he rejoiced to become aware that these were holy ghosts—for behold the way was lined with the shadows of ten thousand crosses whereon hung ten thousand crucified ghosts.
Seeing that he was among friends, Gud decided to tarry yet a little while.
He was very much interested to learn that the inhabitants of this realm were not merely the spiritual leftovers of deceased material beings, but were true ghosts who had always been ghosts. This fact puzzled Gud, but there was no doubt about its authenticity, for the ghosts had a revelation that testified to their purely ghostly origin.
All the ghosts accepted this revelation of their origin, but there were differences of opinion as to their destination. Having an honest difference of opinion about an unknowable matter, there was, of course, ample justification for the ten thousand crucified ghosts that hung on the shadows of crosses.
Among these ghosts, who were so positive about their origin and so uncertain about their destiny, there were two sects: the Spiritualists and the Materialists. The Spiritualists, knowing that they had always been spirits, argued that they would always remain spirits. But the Materialists decried this pessimistic faith and held forth a great hope that if they adhered to all the platitudes they would have the pleasure of shuffling off the immortal coil and being reborn as material beings.
It was the tenets of this sect that Gud espoused, for he admired the faith of these mere ghosts who had never sensed matter, and yet had lifted up their eyes in the hope of material life.
With his experience in such affairs Gud readily assumed the role of a prophet of this Materialistic faith. But it is not sufficient merely to call the righteous to repentance, and Gud indulged his imagination to think of some way to impress the skeptical Spiritualists with the truth of the Materialist faith.
It was Fidu who gave Gud the idea for the great miracle, for Fidu had remained close to his master, both of course, in their spiritual beings.
The ghosts were not aware that Fidu was among them, and not being familiar with dogs they walked right through him, ignoring the poor beast quite utterly, which was very humiliating to Fidu.
So Gud, in sympathy with the Underdog's humiliation, conceived of a great idea, and he called the leaders of the Materialist sect together and asked: "Have any of you ever sensed a material being?"
"No!" answered they, "we have never sensed matter, which is why we have faith in its existence."
"True," said Gud, "enough for the faithful, but these infidels, some of whom you neglected to crucify, have not faith without works. Let us therefore create a material being wherewith to confound them."
"And of what will you create a material being?"
"I usually create things out of nothing," answered Gud.
"But Master," cried the Ghosts, "we have very little of nothing. How much would it take?"
"It will suffice," said Gud, and he whistled to Fidu and straightway materialized him.
A real live dog weighing about twenty-seven pounds, running around through the ghosts, made quite a sensation; and it greatly delighted those of the Materialist faith and converted most of the Spiritualists.
Gud thought for a time he had converted all the infidels and skeptics in the realm to the true faith, but he later found that there was one little band upon whom the materialization of Fidu had made no impression. This sect denied the spiritual existence that they were living, and taught that there was no such a thing as the spirit, but that all was matter.
Gud could not understand why this sect should call themselves Materio-Spiritists, since they were certainly not Spiritualists, as they denied the existence of spirit—and yet they were not Materialists, for they did not believe in matter as matter, but in spirit as matter.
These Materio-Spiritists were not impressed by the miracle Gud had wrought in the interest of the orthodox Materialist faith. They believed that all was matter, yet they did not recognize matter when they met it in the road. They denied the matter-of-fact Fidu, and said he was only an illusion of the non-existent spiritual mind and hence could have no existence, material or immaterial.
Even when Gud took the material dog to their place of worship and had him bark at the service, they still argued that the material Fidu was non-existent.
Gud was a little crest-fallen at his inability to convert the Materio-Spiritists, and yet the more he argued with them, the more doubtful he became of his own convictions. In fact, he became so confounded that he forgot what his convictions were, and was not sure whether he was a ghost or not, or whether the material dog was real or imaginary.
Finally, to settle his doubts, Gud decided to kill all the ghosts and see whether they would be reborn as material beings or disappear altogether. When he proclaimed his intention there was much rejoicing in the ranks of the Materialists, who thus saw the fulfillment of their faith.
As the day of the spiritual death approached there was a great revival of faith, and much repentance and divers preparation to assume the material role.
Gud was a little puzzled as to how to kill so many ghosts at once. Earthquakes and floods and all that sort of thing were clearly inadequate, but he recalled that the crowing of a cock was very destructive to ghostly life. So he sent Fidu back to the last material realm they had passed, to retrieve a cock which could crow most lustily.
The cock arrived amid a vast darkness, and Gud prepared a great light, at the sight of which the cock crew mightily—and every ghost died of fright.
As the cock was pedigreed, Gud sent Fidu back to restore it to its owner, while he sat himself down to wait for the appearance of the material beings.
None appeared.
After a while Gud grew tired of waiting.
The place was very still and very dark for the wall of light was dark on the inside. In spite of his own ghostly being Gud found that he was getting nervous. He had creepy sensations up and down his spine—
This is a flunk. Ghosts of the ghosts are too much for my imagination. It was Hersey's idea anyway. When you kill a ghost, of course you would have a ghost of a ghost to take its place, and one ought to be able to imagine it. But if you kill that, then you should have the ghost of a ghost of a ghost, and that is straining the imagination to its cracking point. And if you kill that then you should have the ghost of a ghost of a ghost of a ghost—et cetera, ad infinitum, to the Nth expansion—me for Einstein and his warped light.
As Gud strolled along trying to forget the past he stumbled over the soul of an old blind ghost who was sitting on a petrified memory and sentimentalizing over her woes.
"Pardon me," said Gud, "but why are you so blind that I could not see you?"
"I am blind," replied the old soul, "because I strained my eyes out looking at the moving pictures, and now I am very miserable because I can not see them."
"Oh, if that is all," answered Gud, "I will restore your sight. It will cost you nothing but a little praise and gratitude."
When the old soul received her sight she looked around the barren astral landscape and was sorely disappointed, for there were no moving pictures there; and she complained bitterly in her disappointment.
"I could make a motion picture for you if you would tell me how," offered Gud.
"That I will do gladly," cried the old soul, "but first you must have an author to write the scenario."
"That is easy," replied Gud. "There—I have created one. Speak to her, author, for the poor old soul was blind."
"So I see," answered the author, as he extracted a cigarette. "And she wants a story, I take it; but she has been blind and is probably illiterate, and can not read, and I never tell my stories as poets recite their verses—it is bad taste, you know."
"I will restore her literacy," offered Gud, who was in a miraculous mood, "and then she can read."
"It would be doing me no good," sighed the old soul, "for even if I could read the directions on patent medicine bottles because they are printed in so many languages, yet I could never read fiction stories on account of the quotation marks, and it's the pictures I want anyway."
"Oh, pictures," said the author, as he ignited his cigarette, "now that is a different matter; I create stories for the love of art, but moving pictures can not be created for the love of art, for there is no art in them to love."
"Since we are both creators," said Gud, "I don't like to dictate to you, so suppose we compromise. You write a poem for art's sake—as there is no other excuse for writing one—but put it in the form of a scenario."
"Now that is what I call clever!" exclaimed the author, and he whipped out his Corona and wrote the scenario forthwith.
What it was you shall never know, for movie scenarios could never get by heavenly censors without mutilation, and when the censors had done with this one there remained not even the mutilation. However, the author read it to the old soul.
"That is a fine scenario," cried she to Gud, "but you will have to make a director to make the picture out of the scenario."
So Gud made a director. He had never made one before but they are easily made, as they can be made out of most anything.
"Well, I see we have the scenario," remarked the director, when Gud had finished making him, "but it hasn't the proper ending."
"I am sorry," said the author, "but I didn't write a proper ending as I knew you would use your own anyway."
"I know his ending," cried the ugly old soul, "and it is very beautiful—it's the one where—"
"Shut up, you old fool," bawled the director, "don't you know you will spoil the suspense by telling the audience how it is going to end?"
"But in this case we have a real plot," said the author, "and it ought not to be mutilated—"
"Shut up, you conceited pup," howled the director, "and here, take your scenario and have it printed if you like. I don't need it anyway."
And so the author took the scenario and folded it and put it in his inside pocket and walked away, inhaling angrily on his last cigarette.
"Now," spoke the director, "as that infernal ass is gone we can get busy."
"What can I do?" asked Gud.
"Make the cast for me, pick out the sets and rig the props. But first I must have six beautiful girls. It is going to be an all-star cast and I want each of them as beautiful as she can be, yet distinctive, so the audience can tell which is which."
So Gud made six girls, all as beautiful as they could be, and yet all as different as wives are from concubines.
"Fine," exclaimed the director, as he pawed them over affectionately.
"I love you," said the girl with the Cupid's bow mouth.
"I loved him first," spoke the girl with the sorrowful eyes.
"But I love him most," cried the girl with the angel-child curls.
"But I love him like the flower loves the dew," wailed the girl with the human form divine.
"But I love him so that I could die for him," sobbed the girl with the very tender heart.
"Then die," shrieked the old-fashioned vampire, as she plunged a dagger into the very tender heart.
All the girls brought orange blossoms and laid them on the coffin and wept much in each other's arms, and the director renounced his professional ambitions and went back to his old job as market reporter on an undertaker's weekly.
"Oh, thank you so much," spoke the ugly old soul to Gud.
"For what?" asked Gud.
"For the beautiful sentiments of the picture," she replied.
"But that wasn't a picture," corrected Gud, "that was reality."
"What are you saying?" queried the old soul, "I was blind, you know, and didn't hear very well either."
"Oh, nothing," said Gud. "I am glad you enjoyed it." For he saw that she had taken reality for romance, which is a far more beautiful illusion than taking romance for reality. So Gud went quietly on his way.
And Gud overtook a thief who had stolen an ocean and loaded it into a wagon which he had hitched to a star. The thief was making a poor getaway, for the wagon was leaking badly and was dropping clues at every step.
To avoid being drowned in the drippings, Gud turned into an unexplored dimension, but before he could get his bearings he was run down by an insane comet collector, who was madly chasing a comet that was buzzing dangerously near an incandescent sun—so hot that its nearest molecules were farther apart than the hearts of a bigamist's wives.
To avoid the net of the comet collector Gud hid himself in an ethereal cavern. There he found a spiritual paleontologist at work reconstructing extinct souls from the merest fossil fragments.
Gud picked up a tiny fragment and asked the paleontologist what manner of soul it had been.
The paleontologist scrutinized it through his confounded monocle and replied: "It is a bit of ectoplasm from the soul of a woman killed by curiosity. She was forever asking her lovers, 'How much do you love me?'"
The paleontologist now reached up to a geometrical plane and brought down another small fossil. "Observe," said he, "the marking on this other bit of petrified ectoplasm, and note how the two differ."
"Yes, I see," said Gud, "what is that one?"
"That," replied the paleontologist, "is a fragment of the aura of a woman who wished to be loved for herself alone."
"It is very interesting," agreed Gud, "but tell me why those two completed models on the nebulous shelf behind you look so argumentative."
"Ah," said the paleontologist, "they are the pride of my collection, being the reconstruction of two friendly enemies. One was the soul of a deist and the other the soul of an atheist, and they argued and argued through one eternity after another. They argued not wisely but too well, for each finally converted the other, and the deist became an atheist and the atheist became a deist. Then they started arguing all over again. But before the atheist who had become a deist could convert the deist who had become an atheist back to deism, or the deist who had become an atheist could convert the atheist who had become a deist back to atheism, the astral plane was rotated into a cosmic epizoid, resulting in a cataclysm that buried these two poor souls in an avalanche of metaphysical debris which was stratified under the radiant pressure, just as we find it here."
"It is very wonderful," said Gud, "but why do you probe into secrets of the dead past when there are so many living souls existing in poverty of hopes or a sorrow of memories?"
The paleontologist removed the confounded monocle from his eye, and wiped the lens with a bit of chamois skin.
"I am no base utilitarian," said he, "but a pure scientist seeking truth for truth's sake."
"Well," said Gud, "a good deal of it isn't worth seeking for any other reason. Do you know I have often wondered what any one would do with all the truth if he did find it—for my part I have never been able to make use of half I possessed."
"But you misunderstand the aims of pure science. We scientists have no use for truth either, after we have found it; but the search for truth raises us above the base utilitarian."
"Yes," said Gud, "pure science is all right in its place, but you wipe the lens of your confounded monocle with a chamois skin, and how could one get chamois skin unless there were farmers and butchers and skinners and tanners to farm, butcher, skin and tan the chamois?"
"Mere hewers of wood and drawers of water," repeated the pure scientist with disdain, "let them serve truth and searchers after truth; for knowledge is power and the truth shall make us free."
"Free of what?" asked Gud.
But the paleontologist did not answer, for he had spied another bit of fossilized ectoplasm and was readjusting his confounded monocle so that he might examine it, to see if it were part of the fragment of the soul of the infant prodigy who had mastered calculus before it cut its canine teeth, or merely another piece of that soul of the man who had gone spiritually to pieces when he met his fame.
Alas, it was neither but something worse, and so Gud asked what it was.
"It is the fragment," replied the paleontologist, "of the soul of an old maid who committed suicide because she could not live in eternal doubt."
"And what did she doubt?" asked Gud.
"Her virtue."
"And why did she doubt that?"
"Because she suffered from a dual personality complicated by amnesia."
"Oh, I see," said Gud, "she wanted to know how the other half lived."
"No, no," protested the fossil collector, "she was not a sociologist but one of the minor female poets who specialize in ballads in the romantic manner. See, here is one of her manuscripts that she had translated so that she could take it with her."
"Translated into what?" asked Gud.
"Into spirit language," said the paleontologist, "and if you read it you will see for yourself how very spiritual it is."
Gud took the poem and glanced at the first line. "Pardon me," he said, "but is there a graveyard handy?"
"As you should judge for yourself," replied the paleontologist, "from the number of bones I have been digging up, this place itself was once a graveyard."
"All things that were can be again," said Gud, as he turned back the wheel of time until he came into the graveyard as it was in the days of its prosperity.
Seeing that he was in the respectable part of the graveyard, Gud hastened to walk down the hill to the less respectable portion. Experience had taught him that in the part of a graveyard where rich men are buried he was likely to be annoyed by relatives who felt they had been cheated in the wills and were anxious to have resurrections performed.
As Gud strolled through the disreputable portion of the cemetery he came upon a man who was sitting on a grave and weeping bitterly.
The Gods of the Gallows ride tonightTheir shadowy faces spotted white.The creature who watches through the barsHears every footfall under the stars.The gods of the gallows need no rest—They ride like chieftains—twelve abreast.And now they have vanished, leaving hope,And a thing that hangs at the end of a rope.Under the lattice a rosebud trembles, a rosebud trembles gently....Under the trees the shadows fallIn a silver pool by the garden wall;Then here and there among the treesWind whispers rouse low litanies.Like tiny voices of tongueless griefThat stir the silence of every leaf.And who would know that under the lattice, under the lattice window,Where the rosebud stirred like a startled fawn,Two hands are creeping up the wall,Two hands that are slim and white and small?And who can hear the lattice open, the lattice open gently?Now over the lip of the window sill,A rustle of silks, the lattice closes,No one has heard, the night is still,Save unblossomed buds of the startled roses.Yet were attentive ears to hearken: enemy ears to listenFar off, far off, where the white road bends,And the upturned cup of the blue sky ends,They might have heard a horse's hoofsGo clickity, clickity, clickity hack, clickity hack, clickity ...clickity ... clickity ... hackWisely wondered why late at nightSo speedy a horseman rode its back....Then the echo dimmed at the edge of a wood,And the sound and the horse were gone for good.The creature who watches through the barsHeard every footfall under the stars.Beside the doorway of his cellImprisoned in that iron hell,He taunted the guards of the King—the King's own guards they were—With scarlet breeches and purple coats,Shining buckles upon their boots.He taunted them with sneering jests.He sneered at the medals on their breasts;Laughed in the haughty captain's face,Cut short the chaplain's plea for grace,And hummed the popular air of the dayWhen they read the sentence, and bade him pray."I promised her at our final tryst,When our aching bodies clung and kissed,That come what may, no matter whenI should see her to tell her I love her again."And he laughed through the barsIn a redcoat's face,Then he looked through the windowUp at the stars,And saw that the dawn was taking place.I'll be returning ere the dusk is down,I'll be returning....Wait for me!I'll be returning though life claimsAllegiance under lying rames.This was the song he sang for her—for her this song he sang.So there by the pool where the rose leaves drift.She waited knowing the dawn was near,And when she saw the shadows liftAnd all the skies turn deep and clear,She fled to her room—he had not come.They dared not speak to her of him,Her mother, her sister—aye, any of them.For her face was carven out of stoneAnd her little lips made moan, made moan.Yet late that night when the house was stillShe heard a horse ride over the hill."It is he, it is he," her heart sang sweet.Then out of the window climbed to meetThe lover who made her hot heart beat.Yes there he was with his handsome head,And now the same dear things he saidAs he drew close with a sweep of his arm.The gods of the gallows need no rest—They ride like chieftains twelve abreast.One flower touched as she fluttered by,Swung on its stem,And one bright star in the purple skyShone over them.And what he said, it matters not,Nor what she said to him.And he stopped to listen like one who is stirred;His horse even hearkened, as though he heard.For down the road there came abreastTwelve men in ancient armor dressed.There was something strange in the way they rode;There was something odd in their manners.They did not see the lovers there,Nor heed the house at all,But they rode like mad their horses backs....Rode through the solid wall.When she had opened her frightened eyesWhat was her pitiful heart's surpriseTo find him goneAnd the yellow dawnA roaring flame in the new day's skies.And now they have vanished leaving hope,And a thing that hangs at the end of a rope.They found her thereIn a little heapAs though she had walkedIn her lilied sleep.And they never knew,Though her mother said:"It's a pity, so,With her lover deadOn the gallows' treeThree days ago...."
The Gods of the Gallows ride tonightTheir shadowy faces spotted white.The creature who watches through the barsHears every footfall under the stars.The gods of the gallows need no rest—They ride like chieftains—twelve abreast.And now they have vanished, leaving hope,And a thing that hangs at the end of a rope.
Under the lattice a rosebud trembles, a rosebud trembles gently....Under the trees the shadows fallIn a silver pool by the garden wall;Then here and there among the treesWind whispers rouse low litanies.Like tiny voices of tongueless griefThat stir the silence of every leaf.And who would know that under the lattice, under the lattice window,Where the rosebud stirred like a startled fawn,Two hands are creeping up the wall,Two hands that are slim and white and small?And who can hear the lattice open, the lattice open gently?Now over the lip of the window sill,A rustle of silks, the lattice closes,No one has heard, the night is still,Save unblossomed buds of the startled roses.Yet were attentive ears to hearken: enemy ears to listenFar off, far off, where the white road bends,And the upturned cup of the blue sky ends,They might have heard a horse's hoofsGo clickity, clickity, clickity hack, clickity hack, clickity ...clickity ... clickity ... hackWisely wondered why late at nightSo speedy a horseman rode its back....Then the echo dimmed at the edge of a wood,And the sound and the horse were gone for good.The creature who watches through the barsHeard every footfall under the stars.
Beside the doorway of his cellImprisoned in that iron hell,He taunted the guards of the King—the King's own guards they were—With scarlet breeches and purple coats,Shining buckles upon their boots.He taunted them with sneering jests.He sneered at the medals on their breasts;Laughed in the haughty captain's face,Cut short the chaplain's plea for grace,And hummed the popular air of the dayWhen they read the sentence, and bade him pray.
"I promised her at our final tryst,When our aching bodies clung and kissed,That come what may, no matter whenI should see her to tell her I love her again."
And he laughed through the barsIn a redcoat's face,
Then he looked through the windowUp at the stars,And saw that the dawn was taking place.I'll be returning ere the dusk is down,I'll be returning....Wait for me!I'll be returning though life claimsAllegiance under lying rames.
This was the song he sang for her—for her this song he sang.
So there by the pool where the rose leaves drift.She waited knowing the dawn was near,And when she saw the shadows liftAnd all the skies turn deep and clear,She fled to her room—he had not come.They dared not speak to her of him,Her mother, her sister—aye, any of them.For her face was carven out of stoneAnd her little lips made moan, made moan.
Yet late that night when the house was stillShe heard a horse ride over the hill."It is he, it is he," her heart sang sweet.Then out of the window climbed to meetThe lover who made her hot heart beat.Yes there he was with his handsome head,And now the same dear things he saidAs he drew close with a sweep of his arm.The gods of the gallows need no rest—They ride like chieftains twelve abreast.
One flower touched as she fluttered by,Swung on its stem,And one bright star in the purple skyShone over them.And what he said, it matters not,Nor what she said to him.And he stopped to listen like one who is stirred;His horse even hearkened, as though he heard.For down the road there came abreastTwelve men in ancient armor dressed.There was something strange in the way they rode;There was something odd in their manners.They did not see the lovers there,Nor heed the house at all,But they rode like mad their horses backs....Rode through the solid wall.When she had opened her frightened eyesWhat was her pitiful heart's surpriseTo find him goneAnd the yellow dawnA roaring flame in the new day's skies.
And now they have vanished leaving hope,And a thing that hangs at the end of a rope.
They found her thereIn a little heapAs though she had walkedIn her lilied sleep.And they never knew,Though her mother said:"It's a pity, so,With her lover deadOn the gallows' treeThree days ago...."
"Why do you weep?" asked Gud, "since most of these dead ones will go to Hell anyway."
The man did not answer but kept on weeping. So Gud paused to read the epitaph on the tombstone of the grave on which the man was sitting. The inscription was: "IN THIS GRAVE LIE THE DAMNED SOULS OF UNBAPTIZED BABES."
"Come," said Gud, shaking the weeping man by the shoulder. "If your child wasn't baptized it ought to be damned, but there is no use weeping about it."
"I never had a child," said the man, "but if I were going to have one, I would take no chances, for I would call the priest before I sent for the doctor."
"Then why are you weeping?" repeated Gud.
"Not over the contents of this grave, I assure you, but because of the contents of that grave there by the creek's edge."
"Is a relative of yours buried there?" asked Gud.
"He was no relative of mine," said the man. "And yet I am weeping because he is dead, and you would weep, too, if you were in my boots. You see, I am the hangman and I hanged that man only a fortnight ago."
"Ah, ha!" said Gud, "you hanged an innocent man!"
"Indeed I did not! And if I wept over every innocent man I have hanged, I would never have time to clean the scaffold. But I hanged that man for a petty crime that was never committed."
"And you weep?" asked Gud.
"I weep," said the hangman, "because since I hanged him, we have discovered that he was guilty of a great crime for which I hanged another man a year ago."
"Then you are weeping for the other man?"
"No, no!" retorted the hangman, growing quite angry, "I am weeping because, having hanged this man for a petty crime which was never committed, I cannot hang him now for I have already hanged the other man."
"At last I understand," said Gud, greatly relieved, "and I think I can help you out. Go get your rope and call your citizens!"
As he was sitting one night by a campfire waiting for the beans to boil, Gud picked up a newspaper. Glancing over the advertisements, his eye fell on this item:
Partner Wanted: Fine opportunity for experienced deity to share control of fully evolved world. Will call at any address to give details.—I. B.Devil.
Partner Wanted: Fine opportunity for experienced deity to share control of fully evolved world. Will call at any address to give details.—I. B.Devil.
This interested Gud, for his vacation was getting irksome. So he called Fidu and let him sniff the advertisement and said: "Go get him!"
Fidu immediately hit the trail through the great darkness, baying beautifully.
When the Underdog returned there followed at his heels a handsome Devil.
Gud shook hands with his caller and, removing the pot of beans from the hot rocks in the center of the fire, asked him to be seated.
The Devil, throwing off his cape, sat down in the flames and poked his feet comfortably into the glowing coals.
"You are very considerate," said the Devil, as he took out his pipe and filled the bowl with brimstone; "most fellows of your ilk would let me shiver or make me start my own fire."
"Don't mention it," said Gud. "You have, I believe, a partnership proposition."
"That I have," returned the Devil, "but first may I ask how you came to be out of employment?"
"I smashed everything," explained Gud, "and quit business. The place got too big to be handled easily and I couldn't get efficient help. I thought I would retire, or at least take a long vacation; but you know how that goes, we are all creatures of habit."
"Yes," agreed the Devil, "many of us are like that. We try to do too much, and get discouraged and throw up everything. However, I have always been a hard worker and rather liked it."
"But you are out of a job now," said Gud significantly, "and before I can talk business I will have to know why."
"Certainly," said the Devil, "I am out of employment for the very excellent reason that my god died."
"What! You don't mean it?"
"Why not? You fellows don't want to take your immortality too seriously. It's a necessary pose, of course, as a matter of business; but you see my god was really very old. He had a premonition, too, and very thoughtfully left me a letter of recommendation. Would you like to see it?"
"Thanks, but I never look at letters of recommendation. I have written too many of them. But tell me about this death of your employer."
"My partner, you mean," corrected the Devil. "Of course, I was only the junior partner, but I had a share in the loot. As I said, this chap was old and had won and lost many realms. I was with him on his final venture, running a hell as usual, and a purgatory on the side—the heavy end of the job, I call it, on that three-realm theology. This old god had nothing to do but sit up there surrounded by his angels—yes, he really had angels, old-fashioned place, you know—and wait for the resurrection when I was to deliver up his share of the loot from purgatory, and the Chief Arch was to blast the sleepers out of their graves."
"That's a bit muddled," remarked Gud.
"I grant it, but we had it arranged that way. Well, we got everything ready and I turned the crowd out of purgatory as per agreement; and the Arch blasted out the sleeping souls, and they all went trooping into heaven, demanding to see their god.
"It was a sorry affair, all those countless souls who had lived and died, and some of them had suffered in purgatory for eons. And finally they came trooping into heaven and no god in sight.
"They sent an angel down for me, for the situation was beyond those harp playing satellites. I found that the old god had died peacefully in his sleep, leaving the letter for me and a proper will drawn up, but he was dead.
"I fixed up a double and set him on the throne to keep the crowd quiet while I stood behind a screen to prompt him. But some disgruntled little wing flapper betrayed us and the fraud got out. The crowd stopped squabbling about their gowns and harps, and dropped their hymn books and stared up at us.
"It makes me sad yet when I think about it. I have roasted them and flayed them and boiled them without mercy; all that was nothing like seeing the disappointed expression in the eyes of those poor souls, all arrayed in their new celestial gowns and with harps in hand, staring like little lost children up at a dummy on the throne, and wailing because their god was dead!"
"When did all this happen?" asked Gud.
"A long while ago—like you, I've been on a vacation. The fact was that experience gave me a distaste for my profession. But you know how it is. We are all creatures of habit, as you say, and there are ups and downs in all business. I feel now that it is about time I got back to work—especially since I discovered this virgin world. With that we can start all over, everything new, all our experience to help us, and the likelihood of good luck this time by the law of averages."
"Right you are," agreed Gud, "there is nothing like work. A shoemaker should stick to his last and die with his hammer in his hand. Yes, I think I will consider your proposition. Where is this property you speak of?"
"In the eighth plane."
"The eighth plane!" repeated Gud incredulously. "My dear fellow, there are only seven planes!"
"That's just it; it's being in a place where it could not be explains why it is still there."
"A fascinating tale," said Gud dubiously, "but how can mortals stay rational and civilized if they do not know that we exist, or that there are immortal joys and torments awaiting for them after they are through with their brief span of mortality?"
"Now I can't answer that question as to theory, but I can report my observation of the fact that they manage it very decently well."
"It seems incredible to me," sighed Gud.
"It doesn't to me," replied the Devil, "for if I were mortal I would surely make the best of the life I had instead of pining and worrying about another, which, as you know for yourself, is never quite up to mortal expectations."
The Devil knocked the ash out of the bowl of his pipe on one of the glowing rocks. "Naturally we haven't as much interest as you have in keeping the superstition alive, since we have the dirty end of the deal. But you know very well that you can't do business without us. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that mortals quickly lose interest in those one-sided theologies which, like their own Utopias, are insipid with perfect goodness and boresome with joy. What pleasure could there be in hoping to go to an eternal sunparlor without knowing that one's neighbor was going to hell?"
"Yes, yes, I grant that argument, but this virgin world of yours is hardly plausible."
"Holy comets!" exclaimed the Devil, springing up angrily, "do you doubt my observation or my veracity?"
"Both," said Gud.
"We are wasting words. If you will step this way you can see for yourself."
"Just a moment," said Gud, who then arose and set the pot back on the hot rocks, and commanded Fidu to tend the fire and not to spill the beans.
"Watch your step," called back the Devil. "There are some ugly holes in the void beyond the seventh plane."
"How is that for a sphere?" spoke the Devil as he pointed out his find.
"Not half bad," admitted Gud, "but it's a little flat at the poles. Strictly speaking, it is a spheroid."
"Don't quibble over details. And now, if you don't mind, I'll materialize as a prosperous gentleman and you can be my cane-bearer."
"Not on your smoke," retorted Gud, "you advertised for a partner. We materialize as equals or we stop right here."
"Have it your way. I'll be a king in exile, and you can be a bricklayer on strike."
So in that guise they stepped aboard, taking care to alight on the north pole to avoid the chance of an ugly fall.
"Which way, now?" asked Gud.
"South. We must obey their natural laws."
So they traveled south to the equator, passing along the seashore where the thriving cities were. As Gud walked along between the Devil and the deep blue sea he saw many things that were never intended for him to see.
"Now," said the Devil, "we have seen the northern hemisphere, and the southern one is just like it."
"I am quite interested," admitted Gud.
"Then let us step up the side of this volcano where we can both be comfortable while we close our deal."
So they climbed the volcano and the Devil found a seat on a heap of freshly crusted lava, and Gud sat down on a nearby glacier.
"First," began the Devil, "I would ask you if they had any souls?"
"Not a soul," admitted Gud. "One could see it in their eyes."
"And what about evidence of proprietorship?"
Gud picked up a rock and examined it critically. "I see no evidence of design," he confessed.
"And how about their rationality?"
"That's what worries me. They are entirely too rational. If we try to give them souls they might reject them."
"I can solve that," laughed the Devil. "Give the souls to the females first."
"What!" exclaimed Gud, "that has never been heard of. To give them all souls at once is quite as radical a move as I could consider."
"Well, I won't quibble over details. How long will it take you to fix up your pace?"
"I should say it would take me an eon."
"Make it an epoch."
"Oh, very well."
"And how do you propose to divide the booty? Would you be satisfied with predestination on a fifty-fifty split?"
"I would not," returned Gud decisively. "I consider such collusion to suppress competition most unprofessional. I will give them a revelation, you can plant seeds of doubt and temptation, and we will divide on the usual tests of faith."
"But what about those that pass over without hearing the revelation?"
"I get them on the mercy clause," said Gud.
"That's too liberal," replied the Devil, "and you know it; they belong to me by right of original sin. If you insist on taking them we will call the whole deal off."
"Let's compromise on transmigration and reincarnate them till they do hear my revelation. It will mean quite a saving in the stock of new souls, for we will have to buy them. I was never good at designing home-made souls; I could never get them of even size, and the big ones were always knocking the little ones about."
"Very well," agreed the Devil, who was anxious to get going. "Order the souls when you get ready."
Just then the volcano conveniently erupted and dematerialized the king in exile and the bricklayer on strike.