et the Man on the banks of the Perak
river, and said, 'Ho! Son of Adam, are all the Animals obedient to you?'

'Yes,' said the Man.

'Is all the Earth obedient to you?'

'Yes,' said the Man.

'Is all the Sea obedient to you?'

'No,' said the Man. 'Once a day and once a night the Sea runs up the
Perak river and drives the sweet-water back into the forest, so that my
house is made wet; once a day and once a night it runs down the river
and draws all the water after it, so that there is nothing left but mud,
and my canoe is upset. Is that the play you told it to play?'

'No,' said the Eldest Magician. 'That is a new and a bad play.'

'Look!' said the Man, and as he spoke the great Sea came up the mouth of
the Perak river, driving the river backwards till it overflowed all the
dark forests for miles and miles, and flooded the Man's house.

'This is wrong. Launch your canoe and we will find out who is playing
with the Sea,' said the Eldest Magician. They stepped into the canoe;
the little girl-daughter came with them; and the Man took his kris--a
curving, wavy dagger with a blade like a flame,--and they pushed out on
the Perak river. Then the sea began to run back and back, and the canoe
was sucked out of the mouth of the Perak river, past Selangor, past
Malacca, past Singapore, out and out to the Island of Bingtang, as
though it had been pulled by a string.

Then the Eldest Magician stood up and shouted, 'Ho! beasts, birds, and
fishes, that I took between my hands at the Very Beginning and taught
the play that you should play, which one of you is playing with the
Sea?'

Then all the beasts, birds, and fishes said together, 'Eldest Magician,
we play the plays that you taught us to play--we and our children's
children. But not one of us plays with the Sea.'

Then the Moon rose big and full over the water, and the Eldest Magician
said to the hunchbacked old man who sits in the Moon spinning a
fishing-line with which he hopes one day to catch the world, 'Ho! Fisher
of the Moon, are you playing with the Sea?'

'No,' said the Fisherman, 'I am spinning a line with which I shall some
day catch the world; but I do not play with the Sea.' And he went on
spinning his line.

Now there is also a Rat up in the Moon who always bites the old
Fisherman's line as fast as it is made, and the Eldest Magician said to
him, 'Ho! Rat of the Moon, are you playing with the Sea?'

And the Rat said, 'I am too busy biting through the l