mal life may not buy animal life."

"It has never been practised," was the devil devil doctor's fling.

"And for reason enough," the old chief retorted. "Never before has a man
been fool enough to give a pig for a dog. It is a young pig, and it is
fat and tender. Take the dog, Nalasu. Take the dog now."

But the devil devil doctor was not satisfied.

"As you said, O Bashti, in your very great wisdom, he is the seed dog of
strength and courage. Let him be slain. When he comes from the fire,
his body shall be divided into many small pieces so that every man may
eat of him and thereby get his portion of strength and courage. Better
is it for Somo that its men be strong and brave rather than its dogs."

But Bashti held no anger against Jerry. He had lived too long and too
philosophically to lay blame on a dog for breaking a taboo which it did
not know. Of course, dogs often were slain for breaking the taboos. But
he allowed this to be done because the dogs themselves in nowise
interested him, and because their deaths emphasized the sacredness of the
taboo. Further, Jerry had more than slightly interested him. Often,
since, Jerry had attacked him because of Van Horn's head, he had pondered
the incident. Baffling as it was, as all manifestations of life were
baffling, it had given him food for thought. Then there was his
admiration for Jerry's courage and that inexplicable something in him
that prevented him crying out from the pain of the stick. And, without
thinking of it as beauty, the beauty of line and colour of Jerry had
insensibly penetrated him with a sense of pleasantness. It was good to
look upon.

There was another angle to Bashti's conduct. He wondered why his devil
devil doctor so earnestly desired a mere dog's death. There were many
dogs. Then why this particular dog? That the weight of something was on
the other's mind was patent, although what it was Bashti could not gauge,
guess--unless it might be revenge incubated the day he had prevented Agno
from eating the dog. If such were the case, it was a state of mind he
could not tolerate in any of his tribespeople. But whatever was the
motive, guarding as he always did against the unknown, he thought it well
to discipline his priest and demonstrate once again whose word was the
last word in Somo. Wherefore Bashti replied:

"I have lived long and eaten many pigs. What man may dare say that the
many pigs have entered into me and made me