But Gud did not know what Fidu thought, for Gud was mad. If Gud could only have looked sanely into Fidu"s insane eyes, a deal of trouble might have been avoided. But he could not; and Gud thought the echo of his shout was the roar of a mighty, wicked lion, and he thought Fidu thought so, too. And maybe he did.
Then the lion"s roar roared again. But Gud was not afraid, for he had no reason to be afraid. Filled with unreasonable faith and valor, Gud seized his staff and charged into the jungle after the lion"s roar. And Fidu, the Underdog, followed after Gud, for why shouldn"t a mad dog follow a mad master?
The lion"s roar roared yet again. The hair on the mad Underdog"s back bristled. The dark, dank jungle trembled with the lion"s roar. The monkeys in the tree tops chattered with excitement, for it looked to them as if there was going to be a fight.
Gud charged through the underbrush brandishing his staff and came face to face with the lion"s roar. And Gud struck viciously and valorously at the lion"s roar. But it was only the illusion of a lion"s roar and Gud"s staff went through the incorporeal stuff like a whip lash through mercy.
Then the lion"s roar roared once again, and this time so mightily that Gud died of fright.
When the Underdog came upon the scene, the roar, ashamed of its unreality, had slunk off into the wilderness, and all was quiet in the gloom and the shadow of death.
Fidu sniffed pathetically at his dead master, and then, filled with remorse, he whined piteously, for now that his master was dead the poor mad dog regretted that he had lost Gud"s reason.
For a long time Fidu sat in silent vigil by his dead master"s side, grieving as hard as a poor mad dog could. But at last he arose and licked the right hand of Gud, which he had bitten in his madness, and gazed again into his dead master"s face.
Then, mad though he was, Fidu turned and trotted with unerring canine instinct back to the bridge across the stream. Reaching the bridge he faltered not but dove off bravely into the deep, dark water and retrieved Gud"s reason.
All wet and cold, he came back to his poor master"s side and laid Gud"s reason down beside Gud"s head and then barked loudly.
But Gud did not hear the bark of the Underdog, for Gud was dead. So it must be that the hero of this tale, in what shall come hereafter, is only the Ghost of Gud.
Chapter x.x.xIII
The mists that whirl in greater mists Around the cliffs of s.p.a.ce Leave little drops of water Upon his wrinkled face.
Have you heard Him, as walking through The valleys of the night He paces ever back and forth, Silent, old and white?
Upon some jagged piece of dust As high as night is high, He watches all the tiny worlds Go spinning down the sky.
Around Him are the burning stars That toss like little ships, The winds blow out of dim unknowns Across his very lips.
Have you seen Him amid the silence, Vast as a silken cloud, Lifting His arms with jeweled pendants Cloaked in a heavy shroud?
When sweeping through the open night Great pinions touch the face; Vast wings that fold the face of G.o.d Against the breast of s.p.a.ce;
We hear the hills that all one"s life Were silent as the sun, Break forth in songs that waited there Since life had first begun.
We reach out for the fluttering hand And finding it is gone, We know the stars that shake the sky Are only old and wan.
We stand and listen and we know That rising through the night Pa.s.s all the hosts of all the years Death ever hides from sight.
So much and yet so little then With thrust that follows thrust....
The paltry things of paltry life Shrink swiftly into dust.
We lift our hungry hands to Heaven For pity and in pain The only answer ever given Is that fancy and faith remain.
Wars we wage that One might rule....
Proud and jealous is He.
With fire and sword we crush the fool Who does not bend the knee.
Temple and palace, hovel and hut, Dreamer and doer of deeds, At least one door is never shut, G.o.d answers all our needs.
He walks the crest of some far hill Against the setting sun, The presence of a mighty will Whose journey is never done.
Into the night and over the dawn All the things that are Through empty voids go plunging on....
Planet and sun and star.
Yet He we worship died years ago Like some poor human clod, And that which wanders to and fro Is only the ghost of G.o.d!
Chapter x.x.xIV
"A bear went over the mountain," sang the child (Gud stopped to listen, for the child had had its voice cultivated prenatally) "to see what he could see. A row of hanging skeletons, a swinging in the wind, was all the bear could see in front, and he could not see behind."
"See here," interrupted Gud, "you have the song mixed--what the bear saw was the other side of the mountain."
"Awh, I know," replied the child, "that was what the preteristic old bear saw, but I sing of the futuristic young bear."
Gud shook his head sadly. It made him feel archaic to come thus face to face with the younger generation in art and literature. Somehow he felt that there was something amiss in this new universe that seemed to have arisen Phoenixlike out of the ashes of nothing.
Gud turned from the child with the prenatally cultivated mind and went on his way sorrowfully. And as he walked he hummed softly to himself--"The old-time creation, the old-time creation, It was good for Unph and G.o.dumph ... and it"s good enough for me...."
"Come, come," monologued Gud--"I must not get retrospective--I destroyed it all--ashes to ashes and dust to dust."
As Gud trudged on, trying to shake this mood of a sentimental retrospection from him, he found the light waning and the ether about him turning grey and grim and gruesome.
Then like an avalanche of dead ravens, sable darkness came tumbling down upon him. But there were whitish outlines in the darkness, moving and swaying, and there were rattlings and clanking sounds, and eery whistlings.
Rachitic with fear Gud"s knees bent beneath him and he sank down in the blackness and shuddered in his soul.
Before him, like a great grey army marching, the skeletons of all the mortal dead, of all the worlds and all the ages that had ever been, were filing by.
In measured time they marched, their gaunt legbones swinging in great sweeping strides, their backbones bending and creaking as they marched; while the winds between the worlds whipped through empty eyes and hollow skulls and made eery whistling sounds--and all the dry bones rattled.
So the material dead, in the empty mockery of marching, pa.s.sed by Gud in vain review.
And Gud sat shuddering and alone and watched them--for eons and epochs, and epochs piled on eons of unmarked time.
After all the countless and infinitely innumerable swinging, swaying, clanking, dry-boned skeletons had marched by Gud, they started around again.
Gud knew that they were going around a second time, because he saw one pa.s.s, bearing before his bleached and grinning fact the glow of a good cigar.