s of three
blind mice came out of the four eyes of the fruit, one out of each of
the four eyes, for the third one came out twice.

Oh, under the stars are things to see that fold
Their shining webs around the hidden sun....
When the flesh is faint and the heart grows limp and old,
Surely the work of living is not done.

There was a breathless stillness and the crowd
Leaned forward, looking on and barely stirred.
The surgeon, knife in hand, with spotted shroud,
Cut close around the heart and said no word.

They saw his patient die, and whispered one
Unto another in the clinic there.
But yet the surgeon saw strange actions done
That streaked his head with strands of snow-white hair.

From out the dead man's open chest there crept
A shaggy spider shining in the light,
That shook itself like one who having slept
Puts vainly back the shadows of the night.

The surgeon clutched his throat. Within his breast
He felt a living thing twist here and there;
A thing that stirred from out a deep unrest
Like something moving through a drowned man's hair.

The students only saw his hair turn white....
But he heard tiny pulses throb and beat,
He felt slim fingers clawing out of sight
And hearkened to the patter of tiny feet.

Then shrieking fell across the clinic floor
The students pouring from their seats. Stark dead
He must have been for he said nothing more;
His fingers twitched and once he moved his head.

They did not see that from his mouth there crept
A shaggy spider shining in the light,
That shook itself like one who having slept
Puts vainly back the shadows of the night.

Then sideways moved it, trembling as though cold,
Following where the other spider ran....
Oh, hidden away there are things that are strange and old,
And weave strange webs in the very breast of man.

Chapter XII

And the ghosts of the three blind mice sang to Gud as if their hearts
would break. They sang of brave deeds, for they had been field mice and
they had died upon the field of honor.

And when the song was done, Gud wept again; for now he understood why it
had never rained in that place.

So he arose and stamped out the smouldering embers of the fire he had
builded, and whistled for the Underdog. And when the Underdog came he
devoured the ghost