re you going?" asked the old ghost.

"I was just wondering, whether, if those unhappy people had a real god
would they not quit all this war and devote their time to harmonious
worship?"

"Don't be a fool," laughed the old ghost, "if you go down there as a
stranger preaching some new god they will pour oil on you and set you up
to light the town for a night."

Gud sighed and sat down on the stone again. "I suppose they would," he
admitted, "and I suppose now that I have given you back your power of
communication, you will be wanting to go down there and find a good
medium and preach atheism through spirit messages, since you know what a
fraud all their gods are."

"I shall do nothing of the sort," declared the old ghost. "Of course, if
I could have had a great doctor like you to have restored my speech
while I was yet alive, then I could have explained to my children just
how it all started, and this folly would have never been. But it is too
late now."

"What are you going to do?" asked Gud, for he saw that the old ghost had
arisen with a very determined look on her face as if she surely meant to
do something.

"I am going down there," she asserted; "but I shall not bother with any
silly mediums. I am going to materialize as a woman of great wealth and
beauty, and I am going to captivate and hire the best sculptors and
architects in the land, and under my direction they will build an
enormous fine temple and set up a great idol, the splendor of which that
miserable world has never seen--"

"Just what kind of an idol?" interrupted Gud.

"An image of Bahgung, of course," cried the old ghost. "What else would
you suppose? Wasn't he the first of all their idols, and the best of all
them?"

"But--" said the astonished Gud, "I thought that you did not believe in
that idol and disliked to see your children worship him."

"So I did, in a way, because it was only a crude, wooden carving that my
silly husband had made with his jack-knife--but Bahgung was a great god
for all of that. Why, didn't he heal my youngest child of that terrible
fever when I prayed to him that fearful night? And didn't he tear the
great stone from the cliff that rolled down and killed the tiger? And
didn't he--"

But Gud heard no more, for he was racing madly through the ether and
pinching himself to see if he were real.

Chapter XXVIII

Having come a long way and being footsore and weary Gud felt that it was
time to retire. But