extinguished the light; and Slorg and Sippy sighed, then took the box.

The guardian still slept the sleep that survived a thousand years.

As they came away they saw that indulgent chair close by the edge of
the World in which Owner of the Box had lately sat reading
selfishly and alone the most beautiful songs and verses that poet ever
dreamed.

They came in silence to the foot of the stairs; and then it befell
that as they drew near safely, in the night's most secret hour, some
hand in an upper chamber lit a shocking light, lit it and made no
sound.

For a moment it might have been an ordinary light, fatal as even that
could very well be at such a moment as this; but when it began to
follow them like an eye and to grow redder and redder as it watched
them, then even optimism despaired.

And Sippy very unwisely attempted flight, and Slorg even as unwisely
tried to hide; but Slith, knowing well why that light was lit in that
secret upper chamber and _who_ it was that lit it, leaped over the edge
of the World and is falling from us still through the unreverberate
blackness of the abyss.

THE INJUDICIOUS PRAYERS OF POMBO THE IDOLATER

Pombo the idolater had prayed to Ammuz a simple prayer, a necessary
prayer, such as even an idol of ivory could very easily grant, and
Ammuz had not immediately granted it. Pombo had therefore prayed to
Tharma for the overthrow of Ammuz, an idol friendly to Tharma, and in
doing this offended against the etiquette of the gods. Tharma refused
to grant the little prayer. Pombo prayed frantically to all the gods
of idolatry, for though it was a simple matter, yet it was very
necessary to a man. And gods that were older than Ammuz rejected the
prayers of Pombo, and even gods that were younger and therefore of
greater repute. He prayed to them one by one, and they all refused to
hear him; nor at first did he think at all of that subtle, divine
etiquette against which he had offended. It occurred to him all at
once as he prayed to his fiftieth idol, a little green-jade god whom
the Chinese know, that all the idols were in league against him. When
Pombo discovered this he resented his birth bitterly, and made
lamentation and alleged that he was lost. He might have been seen then
in any part of London haunting curiosity-shops and places where they
sold idols of ivory or of stone, for he dwelt in London with others of
his race though he was born in Burmah among those who hold Ganges
h