Fidu, the Underdog, followed after Gud, for why shouldn't a mad dog
follow a mad master?

The lion's roar roared yet again. The hair on the mad Underdog's back
bristled. The dark, dank jungle trembled with the lion's roar. The
monkeys in the tree tops chattered with excitement, for it looked to
them as if there was going to be a fight.

Gud charged through the underbrush brandishing his staff and came face
to face with the lion's roar. And Gud struck viciously and valorously at
the lion's roar. But it was only the illusion of a lion's roar and Gud's
staff went through the incorporeal stuff like a whip lash through mercy.

Then the lion's roar roared once again, and this time so mightily that
Gud died of fright.

When the Underdog came upon the scene, the roar, ashamed of its
unreality, had slunk off into the wilderness, and all was quiet in the
gloom and the shadow of death.

Fidu sniffed pathetically at his dead master, and then, filled with
remorse, he whined piteously, for now that his master was dead the poor
mad dog regretted that he had lost Gud's reason.

For a long time Fidu sat in silent vigil by his dead master's side,
grieving as hard as a poor mad dog could. But at last he arose and
licked the right hand of Gud, which he had bitten in his madness, and
gazed again into his dead master's face.

Then, mad though he was, Fidu turned and trotted with unerring canine
instinct back to the bridge across the stream. Reaching the bridge he
faltered not but dove off bravely into the deep, dark water and
retrieved Gud's reason.

All wet and cold, he came back to his poor master's side and laid Gud's
reason down beside Gud's head and then barked loudly.

But Gud did not hear the bark of the Underdog, for Gud was dead. So it
must be that the hero of this tale, in what shall come hereafter, is
only the Ghost of Gud.

Chapter XXXIII

The mists that whirl in greater mists
Around the cliffs of space
Leave little drops of water
Upon his wrinkled face.

Have you heard Him, as walking through
The valleys of the night
He paces ever back and forth,
Silent, old and white?

Upon some jagged piece of dust
As high as night is high,
He watches all the tiny worlds
Go spinning down the sky.

Around Him are the burning stars
That toss like little ships,
The winds blow out of dim unknowns
Across his very lips.

Have you see