“Thus do I, the One-not-to-be-mentioned, Drag forth from the belly of heaven The disobedient One, the lazy One! The insolent One who sinneth in sleep! The black-snouted One whose udders are choked! The womanly One whose nipples are dry! The sluttish One who refuseth her milk! The gorbellied One whose voice is a wind! Come forth, lest I give thee sorrow and pain! And make thee to weep the bitterest tears! Come forth, lest I tear out thy black bosom! Tear out thy guts for a feast unto Tarum! Come forth, lest I throw off the yoke of the burden Of the Earth and the Sky upon thy sweating black belly!”
In a slight puff of wind, the smoke, lace-edged with the dawn light, swayed, seeming to twine about the figure of the King as he stood with the wand outheld, as if firmly hooked in the guts of the recalcitrant elements.
Against the rose of the dawn appeared a dark line which increased as the magicians and chiefs moaned and groaned in sympathy with the furious efforts of the rainmaker, who threatened and pulled with the magic crook, so that everybody could see that he was indeed dragging the reluctant clouds from over the end of the earth. As the dark mass swelled the more he wrestled and screamed abuse at the dilatory spirit of the rain.
And behold, within half an hour, great black spirits sailed across the scarlet sunrise and wept exceeding bitterly; while from the village went up a great shout of praise to the triumphant King still prancing and cursing to such good effect up on the hill.
The same vast balloons of sepia rolled over the lake, vomited a host of liquid ramrods and, after short intervals of brilliant glare, were succeeded by others. The gutters of the station were turned into burbling brooks and the grass plot into a morass.
Behind the screen on the south verandah sat zu Pfeiffer in his pink silk pyjamas, a scowl upon his brow. He sipped his café cognac distastefully and inhaled a cigarette so fiercely that the heat burned his tongue. He had not slept. Yet the broken nail on the left little finger had been cut and polished. Half the night he had sat before the photograph in the ivory frame, pondering upon, and rehearsing, the past; muttering aloud to Lucille, sometimes words of love and sometimes savage curses; wondering what she was doing and where she was; gritting his teeth at visions which aroused insane jealousy; calculating what the consequences of his action would be were he to obey the impulse that had leaped into his mind in the first flush of passion. If he were to release the prisoner the fellow would probably expect an explanation and an apology which was, of course, out of the question. No, he must carry out the thing thoroughly without leaving any chance for the man to make trouble at the coast, or through the Embassy at Washington; at all costs not through Washington. For him, Birnier merely existed as a person whose feelings mattered nothing.