ed us." There was fear and
worry in his voice and apprehension on his blue face. "If this be indeed
the Lord of whom he told us--"

"He is not a god," said another. "He is an Earthling, but there have
been such before on Venus, many many of them who came long and long ago
from the skies. Now they are all dead, killed in strife among
themselves. It is well. This last one is one of them, but he is mad."

And they talked long and the dusk grew into night while they talked of
what they must do. The gleam of firelight upon their bodies, and the
waiting drummer.

The problem was difficult. To harm one who was mad was tabu. If he was
really a god, it would be worse. Thunder and lightning from the sky
would destroy the village. Yet they dared not release him. Even if they
took the evil weapon-that-whispered-its-death and buried it, he might
find other ways to harm them. He might have another where he had gone
for the first.

Yes, it was a difficult problem for them, but the eldest and wisest of
them, one M'Ganne, gave them at last the answer.

"O Kallana," he said, "Let us give him to the _kifs_. If _they_ harm
him--" and old M'Ganne grinned a toothless, mirthless grin "--it would
be their doing and not ours."

Kallana shuddered. "It is the most horrible of all deaths. And if he is
a god--"

"If he is a god, they will not harm him. If he is mad and not a god, we
will not have harmed him. It harms not a man to tie him to a tree."

Kallana considered well, for the safety of his people was at stake.
Considering, he remembered how Alwa and Nrana had died.

He said, "It is right."

The waiting drummer began the rhythm of the council-end, and those of
the men who were young and fleet lighted torches in the fire and went
out into the forest to seek the _kifs_, who were still in their season
of marching.

And after a while, having found what they sought, they returned.

They took the Earthling out with them, then, and tied him to a tree.
They left him there, and they left the gag over his lips because they
did not wish to hear his screams when the _kifs_ came.

The cloth of the gag would be eaten, too, but by that time, there would
be no flesh under it from which a scream might come.

They left him, and went back to the compound, and the drums took up the
rhythm of propitiation to the gods for what they had done. For they had,
they knew, cut very close to the corner of a tabu--but the provocation
had been great and th