f Ule to bear fruit
and the buds of Ule to spread into flowers? And every evening did they
not see him, tired and faint, sink to rest amid the western peaks? The
rare strangers who came now and then to the city and heard this story,
were apt to smile unbelievingly and ask laughingly how, after laying his
head among the pillows on the western side of the plain, the sun was
able to wake up on the opposite side, many miles distant?

But this question presented no difficulty to the good people of Ule.
'Why,' they would reply a little irritably, for they liked to think that
the sun was theirs and theirs only, 'surely the sun can walk in his
sleep as well--nay, better--than ordinary folk? A baby could see that!'
they would add with a laugh.

So it was settled that the sun spent all his time in the neighbourhood
of Ule. If the citizens had ever travelled away from their native part,
perhaps they would have thought otherwise; but they rarely, or never,
did.

'What!' they would say, in pained astonishment, 'leave Ule! Why?'

'To see the world,' the rash stranger who had made the suggestion might
reply.

'The world? This is the world,' would be the answer.

And they really believed that it was. The knowledge that thousands of
other places, no whit less happy than themselves, or even more happy,
were in existence would have made the Ulians quite bad-tempered. And
beyond doubt they were in need of no other cause to excite their anger,
for had they not the Flamp?

III

The Flamp was a monster who dwelt in a cave somewhere in the mountains
that surrounded the plain. Once every year, on Christmas night, the
Flamp came into the city and threw the population into a frenzy of
terror. That on this night of the year, a night set apart for joyfulness
and festivity, the Loathly Beast (for so he was called by orators in the
City Council when they had used the word Flamp often enough) should
invade their city, seeking his prey, seemed to the Ulians an act of the
grossest cruelty and injustice. Almost as soon as darkness had fallen on
Christmas Day, the noises in the city would cease, and the house-holders
and their families would sit within barred doors, with uplifted fingers,
holding their breath, and listening, listening. Then in the far distance
_flob! flob!_ faint, _FLOB!! FLOB!!_ less faint, _FLOB!!! FLOB!!!_
less faint, every moment louder, coming nearer and nearer, until the
earth shook, and the Flamp's flobbing, flamp