PukeOnABook

Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html Source of Rahan Comics: Philippe Ropers. https://vk.com/topic-203785966_47424128 Rahan. The son of the ferocious ages! Episode One Hundred and Ten. By Roger Lecureux, drawn by Andre Cheret. The King of the “Four-Hands.” The son of Crao froze, indignant at what he had just discovered. Two chimpanzees lay there, pierced with arrows. A third, younger one, was still alive. Hunters killed these "Four-hands" for fun, since they abandoned them here! Rahan hates killing unnecessarily! Especially the "Four-Hands" who are so close to "Those-Who-Walk-Upright"! With the tip of his knife, he had just delicately extracted the arrows when. Oh! Greek! Greek! Page Two. He collapsed under this veritable "Rain of Monkeys"! Scratched, bitten, beaten a hundred times, he lost consciousness. Greek! Greek! No doubt he would have been finished if a strange cry had not fallen from the foliage. Gra-ha-dak! At this cry, which must have been an order, the “Four-hands” dragged their victim towards a large tree. Greek! Gra-ha-dak! When Rahan came to, stretched out on a main branch, he thought he was floating in a fog. The vague silhouettes of the "Four-Hands" surrounded him. He regained his sharpness but still thought he was dreaming. We saw you trying to kill "Ghekka" with that knife, "Fire-Hair"! Do not Deny It! Page Three. What. What? Who are you? I am Tagoo, the leader of the "Four-Hand" clan! The teenager must not have seen the "season-of-green-leaves" more than fifteen times. Rahan did not want to kill the young "Four-Hands"! He had just extracted the arrows that were making him suffer! You lie! You lie like all hunters, who are seekers, who only seek to destroy us! All "Those-who-walk-upright" are wild beasts! Tagoo seemed to feel a deep hatred for his fellows. They only think about killing us, about burning our shelters! Look at those! They are probably coming to your rescue! A group of men appeared and set fire to the thickets around the big tree. Panic gripped the monkeys as the flames rose. The teenager shouted orders with authority. Ta-ga-heek! Ge-heek! Tra-ek! Page Four. We could take your life! But we will spare you so that you can tell your people how we escaped them! Goodbye "Fire-Hair"! With a juvenile laugh, Tagoo launched himself into the vines. Ha-ha-ha! Tell them also that the king of the "Four-Hands" will soon take revenge! The fire was growing dangerously around the tree. The little chimpanzee Rahan had wanted to nurse was whimpering. The "King" has forgotten you "Ghekka”! Rahan does not want to see hunters treat the "Four-Hands" like that! And then, he has to take his knife back from Tagoo! Hold on tight! Thunderous clamors rang out as the son of Crao flew over the wall of fire. So this damn Taggo has an ally!? They will not go far. They are heading straight for our traps! With disconcerting skill, Rahan caught up with the chimpanzees. He reached Tagoo's height. He became ironic. You forgot "Ghekka", your majesty! Page Five. A true leader never forgets an injured member of his clan! The fire was no longer to be feared, and the fugitives stopped. Why did you run away from the hunters with us? And why do you speak to me so harshly? Because Rahan does not like hunters who slaughter the "Four-Hands." But he also does not like young men who hate their own kind. I hate them because they kicked my father out of the clan when I was still small. Later, I fled the clan! I lived with the "Four-Hands" who adopted me. I became their leader and the idea of avenging my father never left me. Loud cries interrupted Tagoo. He had to flee again from the hunters who were resuming the chase. Disperse! Disperse! A moment later, Rahan and two chimpanzees were leaping into the vines. They landed together on a branch half-cut by the hunters. A branch-trap. They fell together into the void towards a thicket. Page Six. The ends of a large net rose as men burst out of the bushes. Kill the "Four-Hands" but spare Tagoo's ally! The net fell back. A few arrows missed the two monkeys and they disappeared. No! No! Stop! Outraged, the son of Crao snatched a man's bow and broke it on his knee. But. One more gesture and you will never even appear before Yagahoo! From the top of the forest, the "King" saw the hunters jostle Rahan, dragging him into the forest. "Fire-Hair" will die for defending us! A little later. The "Four-Hands" have eluded us once again, Yagahoo! But we have captured this man, who is Tagoo's ally! Let us tie him to the "Wood that turns"! He will stay there, without food or water, as long as Tagoo ambushes us! The son of Crao was tied to a strange turnstile on the outskirts of the village. His position was painful, and was such that he had no chance of freeing himself. Page Seven. You have no right to torture Rahan! This morning, Rahan did not know Tagoo! No one listened to his protests. And he was left to his fate under the burning sun. As the hours passed, his contorted limbs became more and more painful. Only Yagahoo would sometimes come near, activate the "Turnstile" and laugh. Ha-ha-ha! That should not make a "Four-Hands" accomplice's head spin! The forest, the ground, the huts became blurred and began a mad circle around the captive who had to close his eyes. When he opened them again, everything around him wavered, tilted. Why this Hate. For the "Four-hands". Yagahoo? Why? Why? You will find out, "Fire-Hair"! In the past, we respected the "Four-Hands". Their clan and ours lived in peace! Page Eight. But one day, the "Four-Hands" attacked our hunters! Then they did it again! Their ambushes became more and more numerous. And now, ours can no longer hunt in the forest without being harassed! That was why we decided to put an end to the "Four-Hands"! And all this because this young fool Tagoo is haunted by the fixation of avenging his father, whom our clan judged and Banished. What had his father done? Open your ears, "Fire-Hair"! We banned him precisely because he was stupidly slaughtering "Four-Handers"! But Tagoo was too small to understand! And since then we have never been able to approach him to make him listen to reason! Free Rahan and he will go talk to Tagoo! Hum! Can we trust you? Hum! We will decide that at daybreak! However. Fire-hair- saved "Chekka". He defended us. We must deliver him! Go "Grhik"! Greek! Page Nine. All was silent in the village. That is why Rahan heard the rustling of the bushes. Oh! The chimpanzee that came out handed him his ivory knife. He will not be able to cut the vines! Greek. The monkey circled around the tortured man, desperately offering the weapon. Annoyed, he cried out a few times. And Yagahoo emerged from his hut, spear held high! And you wanted us to trust you?! The chief rushed forward, chastising the chimpanzee who retreated, frightened, towards the undergrowth. Do not kill him! Argh! By impelling a rotation on the turnstile, Rahan deflected the spear, throwing Yagahoo to the ground. Page Ten. Here is the proof that you are on the side of the "Four-Hands"! Do not hope for our pity any longer, "Fire-Hair"! You will be put to death tomorrow at dawn! The monkey had disappeared, leaving the knife twenty paces away. Yagahoo returned to his hut without having seen the weapon. But this was of no use to the son of Crao. Rahan must find another way to break the bonds! By twisting them perhaps!? Energetic jolts set the turnstile in motion. First in one direction, then in the other. A hundred times he repeated these maneuvers. Stimulated by the creaking of the fibers that he felt giving way, one by one, under his repeated twists. He gave himself no respite! The vine twisted, and twisted, and twisted. Fibers began to crack. Below, the turnstile turned. And turned. The grayness of the dawn bordered the hills when the central vine finally broke. The shock was harsh! Page Eleven. But Rahan was not yet free. He first had to free his limbs from the "Turning Wood". Then he had to drag himself to the ivory knife. The ivory blade finally cut the bonds. But then Yagahoo and his people came out of the huts. You are the first captive who managed to free himself from the "wood-that-turns", "Fire-Hair"! You will not escape us for all that! And since you managed to get a weapon, Yagahoo offers you a fight! Rahan does not fight "Those-Who-Walk-Upright"! At least, not with his knife! Page Twelve. Yagahoo abandoned his lance. Yagahoo agrees to fight bare-handed! You will regret having allied yourself with the "Four-Hands"! An instant later, the two men were rolling in the dirt. Rahan, all his muscles aching from the long ordeal, was immediately in difficulty. Encumbered, he could not lift his bruised shoulders off the ground. So? You admit defeat? But. But what is happening? Shrill screams erupted all around the village. The king of the "Four-Hands" appeared in a tree. Let us free "Fire-Hair"! Let us destroy the villages! To the attack! To the attack! Clusters of monkeys descended on the huts from all sides, and attacked the men surprised by this assault. Greek! Greek! Argh! Page thirteen. Yes, I admit defeat, Yagahoo. But let me win, or the "Four-Hands" will wreck everything! Seeing Rahan pinning Yagahoo to the ground, Tagoo froze. Oh! "Fire-Hair" has freed himself! He is stronger than Yagahoo! Order the "Four-Hands" to return to the forest, Tagoo! Rahan has things to teach you! The adolescent was hesitant. But if I stay here alone, the hunters will kill me! You see Rahan is stronger than Yagahoo! He will protect you! Tagoo gave orders and the monkeys disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared. Gahareek! Gahareeka! The clan moved aside, leaving Rahan and Tagoo face to face. What did you want to teach me, "Fire-Hair"? You like the "Four-Hands," don't you?! Page Fourteen. Of course! I have always lived with them! For them! So what would you think of a hunter who would stupidly kill them despite the law of his clan? That hunter deserves to be banished by his clan. He. Well, you should know that Yagahoo once banished such a hunter! And that hunter Was your father! You. You are lying! Rahan never lies! You were just a little man who did not understand yet! You only thought of revenge and you launched the "Four-Hands" against those who wanted to defend them! You judged too quickly, therefore badly, Tagoo! One should never judge without knowing the depth of things! But harmony will return to these forests. And you, the "king", you will demand it! Page Fifteen. Tagoo is so ashamed! All he has left to do is flee this territory. To rejoin that of the "Shadows" maybe! The adolescent rushed towards the forest. You lied when you said you never lied! Why did you let him believe that you were stronger than Yagahoo? Do not confuse "Lie" with "Trick", Yagahoo! Without this trick, Tagoo and his "Four-Hands" would have devastated the village to save Rahan! But what are you doing? Come back! Come back! Brother! Rahan will only come back with Tagoo, if he manages to convince him! The son of Crao had appreciated Tagoo's pride, loyalty and remorse. He knew that he could convince him to return among his true brothers: "Those-who-walk-upright"! And the "four-hands," admiring his pursuit, did not yet know that they would soon have to find soon a new "King".

Circe. Copyright 2018 by Madeline Miller. Reformatted for Machine Speech, PukeOnAPlate2024. Version 2 Chapter One. When I was born,the name for what I was did not exist. They called me nymph, assuming I would be like my mother and aunts and thousand cousins. Least of the lesser goddesses, our powers were so modest they could scarcely ensure our eternities. We spoke to fish and nurtured flowers, coaxed drops from the clouds or salt from the waves. That word,nymph,paced out the length and breadth of our futures. In our language, it means not just goddess, butbride. My mother was one of them, a naiad, guardian of fountains and streams. She caught my father’s eye when he came to visit the halls of her own father, Oceanos. Helios and Oceanos were often at each other’s tables in those days. They were cousins, and equal in age, though they did not look it. My father glowed bright as just-forged bronze, while Oceanos had been born with rheumy eyes and a white beard to his lap. Yet they were both Titans, and preferred each other’s company to those new-squeaking gods upon Olympus who had not seen the making of the world. Oceanos’ palace was a great wonder, set deep in the earth’s rock. Its high-arched halls were gilded, the stone floors smoothed by centuries of divine feet. Through every room ran the faint sound of Oceanos’ river, source of the world’s fresh waters, so dark you could not tell where it ended and the rock-bed began. On its banks grew grass and soft gray flowers, and also the unnumberedchildren of Oceanos, naiads and nymphs and river-gods. Otter-sleek, laughing, their faces bright against the dusky air, they passed golden goblets among themselves and wrestled, playing games of love. In their midst, outshining all that lily beauty, sat my mother. Her hair was a warm brown, each strand so lustrous it seemed lit from within. She would have felt my father’s gaze, hot as gusts from a bonfire. I see her arrange her dress so it drapes just so over her shoulders. I see her dab her fingers, glinting, in the water. I have seen her do a thousand such tricks a thousand times. My father always fell for them. He believed the world’s natural order was to please him. “Who is that?” my father said to Oceanos. Oceanos had many golden-eyed grandchildren from my father already, and was glad to think of more. “My daughterPerse. She is yours if you want her.” The next day, my father found her by her fountain-pool in the upper world. It was a beautiful place, crowded with fat-headed narcissus, woven over with oak branches. There was no muck, no slimy frogs, only clean, round stones giving way to grass. Even my father, who cared nothing for the subtleties of nymph arts, admired it. My mother knew he was coming. Frail she was, but crafty, with a mind like a spike-toothed eel. She saw where the path to power lay for such as her, and it was not in bastards and riverbank tumbles. When he stood before her, arrayed in his glory, she laughed at him.Lie with you? Why should I? My father, of course, might have taken what he wanted. But Helios flattered himself that all women went eager to his bed, slave girls and divinities alike. His altars smoked with the proof, offerings from big-bellied mothers and happy by-blows. “It is marriage,” she said to him, “or nothing. And if it is marriage, be sure: you may have what girls you like in the field, but you will bring none home, for only I will hold sway in your halls.” Conditions, constrainment. These were novelties to my father, and gods love nothing more than novelty. “A bargain,” he said, and gave her a necklace to seal it, one of his own making, strung with beads of rarest amber. Later, when I was born, he gave her a second strand, and another for each of my three siblings. I do not know which she treasured more: the luminous beads themselves or the envy of her sisters when she wore them. I think she would have gone right on collecting them into eternity until they hung from her neck like a yoke on an ox if the high gods had not stopped her. By then they had learned what the four of us were. You may have other children, they told her, only not with him. But other husbands did not give amber beads. It was the only time I ever saw her weep. At my birth, an aunt, I will spare you her name because my tale is full of aunts, washed and wrapped me. Another tended to my mother, painting the red back on her lips, brushing her hair with ivory combs. A third went to the door to admit my father. “A girl,” my mother said to him, wrinkling her nose. But my father did not mind his daughters, who were sweet-tempered and golden as the first press of olives. Men and gods paid dearly for the chance to breed from their blood, and my father’s treasury was said to rival that of the king of the gods himself. He placed his hand on my head in blessing. “She will make a fair match,” he said. “How fair?” my mother wanted to know. This might be consolation, if I could be traded for something better. My father considered, fingering the wisps of my hair, examining my eyes and the cut of my cheeks. “A prince, I think.” “A prince?” my mother said. “You do not mean a mortal?” The revulsion was plain on her face. Once when I was young I asked what mortals looked like. My father said, “You may say they are shaped like us, but only as the worm is shaped like the whale.” My mother had been simpler:like savage bags of rotten flesh. “Surely she will marry a son of Zeus,” my mother insisted. She had already begun imagining herself at feasts upon Olympus, sitting at Queen Hera’s right hand. “No. Her hair is streaked like a lynx. And her chin. There is a sharpness to it that is less than pleasing.” My mother did not argue further. Like everyone, she knew the stories of Helios’ temper when he was crossed.However gold he shines, do not forget his fire. She stood. Her belly was gone, her waist reknitted, her cheeks fresh and virgin-rosy. All our kind recover quickly, but she was faster still, one of the daughters of Oceanos, who shoot their babes like roe. “Come,” she said. “Let us make a better one.” I grew quickly. My infancy was the work of hours, my toddlerhood a few moments beyond that. An aunt stayed on hoping to curry favor with my mother and named meHawk,Circe, for my yellow eyes, and the strange, thin sound of my crying. But when she realized that my mother no more noticed her service than the ground at her feet, she vanished. “Mother,” I said, “Aunt is gone.” My mother didn’t answer. My father had already departed for his chariot in the sky, and she was winding her hair with flowers, preparing to leave through the secret ways of water, to join her sisters on their grassy riverbanks. I might have followed, but then I would have had to sit all day at my aunts’ feet while they gossiped of things I did not care for and could not understand. So I stayed. My father’s halls were dark and silent. His palace was a neighbor to Oceanos’, buried in the earth’s rock, and its walls were made of polished obsidian. Why not? They could have been anything in the world, blood-red marble from Egypt or balsam from Araby, my father had only to wish it so. But he liked the way the obsidian reflected his light, the way its slick surfaces caught fire as he passed. Of course, he did not consider how black it would be when he was gone. My father has never been able to imagine the world without himself in it. I could do what I liked at those times: light a torch and run to see the dark flames follow me. Lie on the smooth earth floor and wear small holes in its surface with my fingers. There were no grubs or worms, though I didn’t know to miss them. Nothing lived in those halls, except for us. When my father returned at night, the ground rippled like the flank of a horse, and the holes I had made smoothed themselves over. A moment later my mother returned, smelling of flowers. She ran to greet him, and he let her hang from his neck, accepted wine, went to his great silver chair. I followed at his heels.Welcome home, Father, welcome home. While he drank his wine, he played draughts. No one was allowed to play with him. He placed the stone counters, spun the board, and placed them again. My mother drenched her voice in honey. “Will you not come to bed, my love?” She turned before him slowly, showing the lushness of her figure as if she were roasting on a spit. Most often he would leave his game then, but sometimes he did not, and those were my favorite times, for my mother would go, slamming the myrrh-wood door behind her. At my father’s feet, the whole world was made of gold. The light came from everywhere at once, his yellow skin, his lambent eyes, the bronze flashing of his hair. His flesh was hot as a brazier, and I pressed as close as he would let me, like a lizard to noonday rocks. My aunt had said that some of the lesser gods could scarcely bear to look at him, but I was his daughter and blood, and I stared at his face so long that when I looked away it was pressed upon my vision still, glowing from the floors, the shining walls and inlaid tables, even my own skin. “What would happen,” I said, “if a mortal saw you in your fullest glory?” “He would be burned to ash in a second.” “What if a mortal saw me?” My father smiled. I listened to the draught pieces moving, the familiar rasp of marble against wood. “The mortal would count himself fortunate.” “I would not burn him?” “Of course not,” he said. “But my eyes are like yours.” “No,” he said. “Look.” His gaze fell upon a log at the fireplace’s side. It glowed, then flamed, then fell as ash to the ground. “And that is the least of my powers. Can you do as much?” All night I stared at those logs. I could not. My sister was born, and my brother soon after that. I cannot say how long it was exactly. Divine days fall like water from a cataract, and I had not learned yet the mortal trick of counting them. You’d think my father would have taught us better, for he, after all, knows every sunrise. But even he used to call my brother and sister twins. Certainly, from the moment of my brother’s birth, they were entwined like minks. My father blessed them both with one hand. “You,” he said to my luminous sister Pasiphae. “You will marry an eternal son of Zeus.” He used his prophecy voice, the one that spoke of future certainties. My mother glowed to hear it, thinking of the robes she would wear to Zeus’ feasts. “And you,” he said to my brother, in his regular voice, resonant, clear as a summer’s morning. “Every son reflects upon his mother.” My mother was pleased with this, and took it as permission to name him. She called him Perses, for herself. The two of them were clever and quickly saw how things stood. They loved to sneer at me behind their ermine paws.Her eyes are yellow as piss. Her voice is screechy as an owl. She is called Hawk, but she should be called Goat for her ugliness. Those were their earliest attempts at barbs, still dull, but day by day they sharpened. I learned to avoid them, and they soon found better sport among the infant naiads and river-lords in Oceanos’ halls. When my mother went to her sisters, they followed and established dominion over all our pliant cousins, hypnotized like minnows before the pike’s mouth. They had a hundred tormenting games that they devised. Come, Melia, they coaxed. It is the Olympian fashion to cut off your hair to the nape of your neck. How will you ever catch a husband if you don’t let us do it? When Melia saw herself shorn like a hedgehog and cried, they would laugh till the caverns echoed. I left them to it. I preferred my father’s quiet halls and spent every second I could at my father’s feet. One day, perhaps as a reward, he offered to take me with him to visit his sacred herd of cows. This was a great honor, for it meant I might ride in his golden chariot and see the animals that were the envy of all the gods, fifty pure-white heifers that delighted his eye on his daily path over the earth. I leaned over the chariot’s jeweled side, watching in wonder at the earth passing beneath: the rich green of forests, the jagged mountains, and the wide out-flung blue of the ocean. I looked for mortals, but we were too high up to see them. The herd lived on the grassy island of Thrinakia with two of my half-sisters as caretakers. When we arrived these sisters ran at once to my father and hung from his neck, exclaiming. Of all my father’s beautiful children, they were among the most beautiful, with skin and hair like molten gold. Lampetia and Phaethousa, their names were.RadiantandShining. “And who is this you have brought with you?” “She must be one of Perse’s children, look at her eyes.” “Of course!” Lampetia, I thought it was Lampetia, stroked my hair. “Darling, your eyes are nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. Your mother is very beautiful, but she has never been strong.” “My eyes are like yours,” I said. “How sweet! No, darling, ours are bright as fire, and our hair like sun on the water.” “You’re clever to keep yours in a braid,” Phaethousa said. “The brown streaking does not look so bad then. It is a shame you cannot hide your voice the same way.” “She could never speak again. That would work, would it not, sister?” “So it would.” They smiled. “Shall we go to see the cows?” I had never seen a cow before, of any kind, but it did not matter: the animals were so obviously beautiful that I needed no comparison. Their coats were pure as lily petals and their eyes gentle and long-lashed. Their horns had been gilded, that was my sisters’ doing, and when they bent to crop the grass, their necks dipped like dancers. In the sunset light, their backs gleamed glossy-soft. “Oh!” I said. “May I touch one?” “No,” my father said. “Shall we tell you their names? That is White-face, and that is Bright-eyes, and that Darling. There is Lovely Girl and Pretty and Golden-horn and Gleaming. There is Darling and there is, ” “You named Darling already,” I said. “You said that one was Darling.” I pointed to the first cow, peacefully chewing. My sisters looked at each other, then at my father, a single golden glance. But he was gazing at his cows in abstracted glory. “You must be mistaken,” they said. “This one we just said is Darling. And this one is Star-bright and this one Flashing and, ” My father said, “What is this? A scab upon Pretty?” Immediately my sisters were falling over themselves. “What scab? Oh, it cannot be! Oh, wicked Pretty, to have hurt yourself. Oh, wicked thing, that hurt you!” I leaned close to see. It was a very small scab, smaller than my smallest fingernail, but my father was frowning. “You will fix it by tomorrow.” My sisters bobbed their heads,of course, of course. We are so sorry. We stepped again into the chariot and my father took up the silver-tipped reins. My sisters pressed a last few kisses to his hands, then the horses leapt, swinging us through the sky. The first constellations were already peeping through the dimming light. I remembered how my father had once told me that on earth there were men called astronomers whose task it was to keep track of his rising and setting. They were held in highest esteem among mortals, kept in palaces as counselors of kings, but sometimes my father lingered over one thing or another and threw their calculations into despair. Then those astronomers were hauled before the kings they served and killed as frauds. My father had smiled when he told me. It was what they deserved, he said. Helios the Sun was bound to no will but his own, and none might say what he would do. “Father,” I said that day, “are we late enough to kill astronomers?” “We are,” he answered, shaking the jingling reins. The horses surged forward, and the world blurred beneath us, the shadows of night smoking from the sea’s edge. I did not look. There was a twisting feeling in my chest, like cloth being wrung dry. I was thinking of those astronomers. I imagined them, low as worms, sagging and bent. Please, they cried, on bony knees, it wasn’t our fault, the sun itself was late. The sun is never late, the kings answered from their thrones. It is blasphemy to say so, you must die! And so the axes fell and chopped those pleading men in two. “Father,” I said, “I feel strange.” “You are hungry,” he said. “It is past time for the feast. Your sisters should be ashamed of themselves for delaying us.” I ate well at dinner, yet the feeling lingered. I must have had an odd look on my face, for Perses and Pasiphae began to snicker from their couch. “Did you swallow a frog?” “No,” I said. This only made them laugh harder, rubbing their draped limbs on each other like snakes polishing their scales. My sister said, “And how were our father’s golden heifers?” “Beautiful.” Perses laughed. “She doesn’t know! Have you ever heard of anyone so stupid?” “Never,” my sister said. I shouldn’t have asked, but I was still drifting in my thoughts, seeing those severed bodies sprawled on marble floors. “What don’t I know?” My sister’s perfect mink face. “That he fucks them, of course. That’s how he makes new ones. He turns into a bull and sires their calves, then cooks the ones that get old. That’s why everyone thinks they are immortal.” “He does not.” They howled, pointing at my reddened cheeks. The sound drew my mother. She loved my siblings’ japes. “We’re telling Circe about the cows,” my brother told her. “She didn’t know.” My mother’s laughter, silver as a fountain down its rocks. “Stupid Circe.” Such were my years then. I would like to say that all the while I waited to break out, but the truth is, I’m afraid I might have floated on, believing those dull miseries were all there was, until the end of days. Chapter Two. Word came that oneof my uncles was going to be punished. I had never seen him, but I had heard his name over and over in my family’s doomy whispers.Prometheus.Long ago, when mankind was still shivering and shrinking in their caves, he had defied the will of Zeus and brought them the gift of fire. From its flames had sprung all the arts and profits of civilization that jealous Zeus had hoped to keep from their hands. For such rebellion Prometheus had been sent to live in the underworld’s deepest pit until a proper torment could be devised. And now Zeus announced the time was come. My other uncles ran to my father’s palace, beards flapping, fears spilling from their mouths. They were a motley group: river-men with muscles like the trunks of trees, brine-soaked mer-gods with crabs hanging from their beards, stringy old-timers with seal meat in their teeth. Most of them were not uncles at all, but some sort of grand-cousin. They were Titans like my father and grandfather, like Prometheus, the remnants of the war among the gods. Those who were not broken or in chains, who had made their peace with Zeus’ thunderbolts. There had only been Titans once, at the dawning of the world. Then my great-uncle Kronos had heard a prophecy that his child would one day overthrow him. When his wife, Rhea, birthed her first babe, he tore it damp from her arms and swallowed it whole. Four more children were born, and he ate them all the same, until at last, in desperation, Rhea swaddled a stone and gave it to him to swallow instead. Kronos was deceived, and the rescued baby, Zeus, was taken to Mount Dicte to be raised in secret. When he was grown he rose up indeed, plucking the thunderbolt from the sky and forcing poisonous herbs down his father’s throat. His brothers and sisters, living in their father’s stomach, were vomited forth. They sprang to their brother’s side, naming themselves Olympians after the great peak where they set their thrones. The old gods divided themselves. Many threw their strength to Kronos, but my father and grandfather joined Zeus. Some said it was because Helios had always hated Kronos’ vaunting pride, others whispered that his prophetic gift gave him foreknowledge of the outcome of the war. The battles rent the skies: the air itself burned, and gods clawed the flesh from each other’s bones. The land was drenched in boiling gouts of blood so potent that rare flowers sprang up where they fell. At last Zeus’ strength prevailed. He clapped those who had defied him into chains, and the remaining Titans he stripped of their powers, bestowing them on his brothers and sisters and the children he had bred. My uncle Nereus, once the mighty ruler of the sea, was now lackey to its new god, Poseidon. My uncle Proteus lost his palace, and his wives were taken for bed-slaves. Only my father and grandfather suffered no diminishment, no loss of place. The Titans sneered. Were they supposed to be grateful? Helios and Oceanos had turned the tide of war, everyone knew it. Zeus should have loaded them with new powers, new appointments, but he was afraid, for their strength already matched his own. They looked to my father, waiting for his protest, the flaring of his great fire. But Helios only returned to his halls beneath the earth, far from Zeus’ sky-bright gaze. Centuries had passed. The earth’s wounds had healed and the peace had held. But the grudges of gods are as deathless as their flesh, and on feast nights my uncles gathered close at my father’s side. I loved the way they lowered their eyes when they spoke to him, the way they went silent and attentive when he shifted in his seat. The wine-bowls emptied and the torches waned. It has been long enough, my uncles whispered. We are strong again. Think what your fire might do if you set it free. You are the greatest of the old blood, greater even than Oceanos. Greater than Zeus himself, if only you wish it. My father smiled. “Brothers,” he said, “what talk is this? Is there not smoke and savor for all? This Zeus does well enough.” Zeus, if he had heard, would have been satisfied. But he could not see what I saw, plain on my father’s face. Those unspoken, hanging words. This Zeus does well enough,for now. My uncles rubbed their hands and smiled back. They went away, bent over their hopes, thinking what they could not wait to do when Titans ruled again. It was my first lesson. Beneath the smooth, familiar face of things is another that waits to tear the world in two. Now my uncles were crowding into my father’s hall, eyes rolling in fear. Prometheus’ sudden punishment was a sign, they said, that Zeus and his kind were moving against us at last. The Olympians would never be truly happy until they destroyed us utterly. We should stand with Prometheus, or no, we should speak against him, to ward off Zeus’ thunderstroke from our own heads. I was in my customary place at my father’s feet. I lay silent so they would not notice and send me away, but I felt my chest roiling with that overwhelming possibility: the war revived. Our halls blasted wide with thunderbolts. Athena, Zeus’ warrior daughter, hunting us down with her gray spear, her brother in slaughter, Ares, by her side. We would be chained and cast into fiery pits from which there was no escape. My father spoke calm and golden at their center: “Come, brothers, if Prometheus is to be punished, it is only because he has earned it. Let us not chase after conspiracy.” But my uncles fretted on.The punishment is to be public. It is an insult, a lesson they teach us. Look what happens to Titans who do not obey. My father’s light had taken on a keen, white edge. “This is the chastisement of a renegade and no more. Prometheus was led astray by his foolish love for mortals. There is no lesson here for a Titan. Do you understand?” My uncles nodded. On their faces, disappointment braided with relief. No blood,for now. The punishment of a god was a rare and terrible thing, and talk ran wild through our halls. Prometheus could not be killed, but there were many hellish torments that could take death’s place. Would it be knives or swords, or limbs torn off? Red-hot spikes or a wheel of fire? The naiads swooned into each other’s laps. The river-lords postured, faces dark with excitement. You cannot know how frightened gods are of pain. There is nothing more foreign to them, and so nothing they ache more deeply to see. On the appointed day, the doors of my father’s receiving hall were thrown open. Huge torches carbuncled with jewels glowed from the walls and by their light gathered nymphs and gods of every variety. The slender dryads flowed out of their forests, and the stony oreads ran down from their crags. My mother was there with her naiad sisters, the horse-shouldered river-gods crowded in beside the fish-white sea-nymphs and their lords of salt. Even the great Titans came: my father, of course, and Oceanos, but also shape-shifting Proteus and Nereus of the Sea, my aunt Selene, who drives her silver horses across the night sky, and the four Winds led by my icy uncle Boreas. A thousand avid eyes. The only ones missing were Zeus and his Olympians. They disdained our underground gatherings. The word was they had already held their own private session of torment in the clouds. Charge of the punishment had been given to a Fury, one of the infernal goddesses of vengeance who dwell among the dead. My family was in its usual place of preeminence, and I stood at the front of that great throng, my eyes fixed upon the door. Behind me the naiads and river-gods jostled and whispered.I hear they have serpents for hair. No, they have scorpion tails, and eyes dripping blood. The doorway was empty. Then at once it was not. Her face was gray and pitiless, as if cut from living rock, and from her back dark wings lifted, jointed like a vulture’s. A forked tongue flicked from her lips. On her head snakes writhed, green and thin as worms, weaving living ribbons through her hair. “I bring the prisoner.” Her voice echoed off the ceiling, raw and baying, like a hunting dog calling down its quarry. She strode into the hall. In her right hand was a whip, its tip rasping faintly as it dragged along the floor. In her other hand stretched a length of chain, and at its end followed Prometheus. He wore a thick white blindfold and the remnants of a tunic around his waist. His hands were bound and his feet too, yet he did not stumble. I heard an aunt beside me whisper that the fetters had been made by the great god of smiths, Hephaestus himself, so not even Zeus could break them. The Fury rose up on her vulture wings and drove the manacles high into the wall. Prometheus dangled from them, his arms drawn taut, his bones showing knobs through the skin. Even I, who knew so little of discomfort, felt the ache of it. My father would say something, I thought. Or one of the other gods. Surely they would give him some sort of acknowledgment, a word of kindness, they were his family, after all. But Prometheus hung silent and alone. The Fury did not bother with a lecture. She was a goddess of torment and understood the eloquence of violence. The sound of the whip was a crack like oaken branches breaking. Prometheus’ shoulders jerked and a gash opened in his side long as my arm. All around me indrawn breaths hissed like water on hot rocks. The Fury lifted her lash again.Crack.A bloodied strip tore from his back. She began to carve in earnest, each blow falling on the next, peeling his flesh away in long lines that crossed and recrossed his skin. The only sound was the snap of the whip and Prometheus’ muffled, explosive breaths. The tendons stood out in his neck. Someone pushed at my back, trying for a better view. The wounds of gods heal fast, but the Fury knew her business and was faster. Blow after blow she struck, until the leather was soaked. I had understood gods could bleed, but I had never seen it. He was one of the greatest of our kind, and the drops that fell from him were golden, smearing his back with a terrible beauty. Still the Fury whipped on. Hours passed, perhaps days. But even gods cannot watch a whipping for eternity. The blood and agony began to grow tedious. They remembered their comforts, the banquets that were waiting on their pleasure, the soft couches laid with purple, ready to enfold their limbs. One by one they drifted off, and after a final lash, the Fury followed, for she deserved a feast after such work. The blindfold had slipped from my uncle’s face. His eyes were closed, and his chin drooped on his chest. His back hung in gilded shreds. I had heard my uncles say that Zeus had given him the chance to beg on his knees for lesser punishment. He had refused. I was the only one left. The smell of ichor drenched the air, thick as honey. The rivulets of molten blood were still tracing down his legs. My pulse struck in my veins. Did he know I was there? I took a careful step towards him. His chest rose and fell with a soft rasping sound. “Lord Prometheus?” My voice was thin in the echoing room. His head lifted to me. Open, his eyes were handsome, large and dark and long-lashed. His cheeks were smooth and beardless, yet there was something about him that was as ancient as my grandfather. “I could bring you nectar,” I said. His gaze rested on mine. “I would thank you for that,” he said. His voice was resonant as aged wood. It was the first time I had heard it, he had not cried out once in all his torment. I turned. My breaths came fast as I walked through the corridors to the feasting hall, filled with laughing gods. Across the room, the Fury was toasting with an immense goblet embossed with a gorgon’s leering face. She had not forbidden anyone to speak to Prometheus, but that was nothing, her business was offense. I imagined her infernal voice, howling out my name. I imagined manacles rattling on my wrists and the whip striking from the air. But my mind could imagine no further than that. I had never felt a lash. I did not know the color of my blood. I trembled so much I had to carry the cup in two hands. What would I say if someone stopped me? But the passageways were quiet as I walked back through them. In the great hall, Prometheus was silent in his chains. His eyes had closed again, and his wounds shone in the torchlight. I hesitated. “I do not sleep,” he said. “Will you lift the cup for me?” I flushed. Of course he could not hold it himself. I stepped forward, so close that I could feel the heat rising from his shoulders. The ground was wet with his fallen blood. I raised the cup to his lips and he drank. I watched his throat moving gently. His skin was beautiful, the color of polished walnut. It smelled of green moss drenched with rain. “You are a daughter of Helios, are you not?” he said, when he had finished, and I’d stepped back. “Yes.” The question stung. If I had been a proper daughter, he would not have had to ask. I would have been perfect and gleaming with beauty poured straight from my father’s source. “Thank you for your kindness.” I did not know if I was kind, I felt I did not know anything. He spoke carefully, almost tentatively, yet his treason had been so brazen. My mind struggled with the contradiction.Bold action and bold manner are not the same. “Are you hungry?” I asked. “I could bring you food.” “I do not think I will ever be hungry again.” It was not piteous, as it might have been in a mortal. We gods eat as we sleep: because it is one of life’s great pleasures, not because we have to. We may decide one day not to obey our stomachs, if we are strong enough. I did not doubt Prometheus was. After all those hours at my father’s feet, I had learned to nose out power where it lay. Some of my uncles had less scent than the chairs they sat on, but my grandfather Oceanos smelled deep as rich river mud, and my father like a searing blaze of just-fed fire. Prometheus’ green moss scent filled the room. I looked down at the empty cup, willing my courage. “You aided mortals,” I said. “That is why you are punished.” “It is.” “Will you tell me, what is a mortal like?” It was a child’s question, but he nodded gravely. “There is no single answer. They are each different. The only thing they share is death. You know the word?” “I know it,” I said. “But I do not understand.” “No god can. Their bodies crumble and pass into earth. Their souls turn to cold smoke and fly to the underworld. There they eat nothing and drink nothing and feel no warmth. Everything they reach for slips from their grasp.” A chill shivered across my skin. “How do they bear it?” “As best they can.” The torches were fading, and the shadows lapped at us like dark water. “Is it true that you refused to beg for pardon? And that you were not caught, but confessed to Zeus freely what you did?” “It is.” “Why?” His eyes were steady on mine. “Perhaps you will tell me. Why would a god do such a thing?” I had no answer. It seemed to me madness to invite divine punishment, but I could not say that to him, not when I stood in his blood. “Not every god need be the same,” he said. What I might have said in return, I do not know. A distant shout floated up the corridor. “It is time for you to go now. Allecto does not like to leave me for long. Her cruelty springs fast as weeds and must any moment be cut again.” It was a strange way to put it, for he was the one who would be cut. But I liked it, as if his words were a secret. A thing that looked like a stone, but inside was a seed. “I will go then,” I said. “You will, be well?” “Well enough,” he said. “What is your name?” “Circe.” Did he smile a little? Perhaps I only flattered myself. I was trembling with all I had done, which was more than I had ever done in my life. I turned and left him, walking back through those obsidian corridors. In the feasting hall, gods still drank and laughed and lay across each other’s laps. I watched them. I waited for someone to remark on my absence, but no one did, for no one had noticed. Why would they? I was nothing, a stone. One more nymph child among the thousand thousands. A strange feeling was rising in me. A sort of humming in my chest, like bees at winter’s thaw. I walked to my father’s treasury, filled with its glittering riches: golden cups shaped like the heads of bulls, necklaces of lapis and amber, silver tripods, and quartz-chiseled bowls with swan-neck handles. My favorite had always been a dagger with an ivory haft carved like a lion’s face. A king had given it to my father in hopes of gaining his favor. “And did he?” I once asked my father. “No,” my father had said. I took the dagger. In my room, the bronze edge shone in the taper’s light and the lion showed her teeth. Beneath lay my palm, soft and unlined. It could bear no scar, no festering wound. It would never wear the faintest print of age. I found that I was not afraid of the pain that would come. It was another terror that gripped me: that the blade would not cut at all. That it would pass through me, like falling into smoke. It did not pass through. My skin leapt apart at the blade’s touch, and the pain darted silver and hot as lightning strike. The blood that flowed was red, for I did not have my uncle’s power. The wound seeped for a long time before it began to reknit itself. I sat watching it, and as I watched I found a new thought in myself. I am embarrassed to tell it, so rudimentary it seems, like an infant’s discovery that her hand is her own. But that is what I was then, an infant. The thought was this: that all my life had been murk and depths, but I was not a part of that dark water. I was a creature within it. Chapter Three. When I woke, Prometheuswas gone. The golden blood had been wiped from the floor. The hole the manacles had made was closed over. I heard the news from a naiad cousin: he had been taken to a great jagged peak in the Caucasus and chained to the rock. An eagle was commanded to come every noon and tear out his liver and eat it steaming from his flesh. Unspeakable punishment, she said, relishing each detail: the bloody beak, the shredded organ re growing only to be ripped forth again.Can you imagine? I closed my eyes. I should have brought him a spear, I thought, something so he could have fought his way through. But that was foolish. He did not want a weapon. He had given himself up. Talk of Prometheus’ punishment scarcely lasted out the moon. A dryad stabbed one of the Graces with her hairpin. My uncle Boreas and Olympian Apollo had fallen in love with the same mortal youth. I waited till my uncles paused in their gossip. “Is there any news of Prometheus?” They frowned, as if I had offered them a plate of something foul. “What news could there be?” My palm ached where the blade had cut, though of course there was no mark. “Father,” I said, “will Zeus ever let Prometheus go?” My father squinted at his draughts. “He would have to get something better for it,” he said. “Like what?” My father did not answer. Someone’s daughter was changed into a bird. Boreas and Apollo quarreled over the youth they loved and he died. Boreas smiled slyly from his feasting couch. His gusty voice made the torches flicker. “You think I’d let Apollo have him? He does not deserve such a flower. I blew a discus into the boy’s head, that showed the Olympian prig.” The sound of my uncles’ laughter was a chaos, the squeaks of dolphins, seal barks, water slapping rocks. A group of nereids passed, eel-belly white, on their way home to their salt halls. Perses flicked an almond at my face. “What’s wrong with you these days?” “Maybe she’s in love,” Pasiphae said. “Hah!” Perses laughed. “Father cannot even give her away. Believe me he’s tried.” My mother looked back over her delicate shoulder. “At least we don’t have to listen to her voice.” “I can make her talk, watch.” Perses took the flesh of my arm between his fingers and squeezed. “You’ve been feasting too much,” my sister laughed at him. He flushed. “She’s just a freak. She’s hiding something.” He caught me by the wrist. “What’re you always carrying around in your hand? She’s got something. Open her fingers.” Pasiphae peeled them back one by one, her long nails pricking. They peered down. My sister spat. “Nothing.” My mother whelped again, a boy. My father blessed him, but spoke no prophecy, so my mother looked around for somewhere to leave him. My aunts were wise by then and kept their hands behind their backs. “I will take him,” I said. My mother scoffed, but she was eager to show off her new string of amber beads. “Fine. At least you will be of some use. You can squawk at each other.” Aeetes, my father had named him.Eagle.His skin was warm in my arms as a sun-hot stone and soft as petal-velvet. There had never been a sweeter child. He smelled like honey and just-kindled flames. He ate from my fingers and did not flinch at my frail voice. He only wanted to sleep curled against my neck while I told him stories. Every moment he was with me, I felt a rushing in my throat, which was my love for him, so great sometimes I could not speak. He seemed to love me back, that was the greater wonder.Circewas the first word he ever spoke, and the second wassister.My mother might have been jealous, if she had noticed. Perses and Pasiphae eyed us, to see if we would start a war. A war? We did not care for that. Aeetes got permission from Father to leave the halls and found us a deserted seaside. The beach was small and pale and the trees barely scrub, but to me it seemed a great, lush wilderness. In a wink he was grown and taller than I was, but still we would walk arm in arm. Pasiphae jeered that we looked like lovers, would we be those types of gods, who coupled with their siblings? I said if she thought of it, she must have done it first. It was a clumsy insult, but Aeetes laughed, which made me feel quick as Athena, flashing god of wit. Later, people would say that Aeetes was strange because of me. I cannot prove it was not so. But in my memory he was strange already, different from any other god I knew. Even as a child, he seemed to understand what others did not. He could name the monsters who lived in the sea’s darkest trenches. He knew that the herbs Zeus had poured down Kronos’ throat were calledpharmaka.They could work wonders upon the world, and many grew from the fallen blood of gods. I would shake my head. “How do you hear such things?” “I listen.” I had listened too, but I was not my father’s favored heir. Aeetes was summoned to sit in on all his councils. My uncles had begun inviting him to their halls. I waited in my room for him to come back, so we could go together to that deserted shore and sit on the rocks, the sea spray at our feet. I would lean my cheek upon his shoulder and he would ask me questions that I had never thought of and could barely understand, like:How does your divinity feel? “What do you mean?” I said. “Here,” he said, “let me tell you how mine feels. Like a column of water that pours ceaselessly over itself, and is clear down to its rocks. Now, you.” I tried answers: like breezes on a crag. Like a gull, screaming from its nest. He shook his head. “No. You are only saying those things because of what I said. What does it really feel like? Close your eyes and think.” I closed my eyes. If I had been a mortal, I would have heard the beating of my heart. But gods have sluggish veins, and the truth is, what I heard was nothing. Yet I hated to disappoint him. I pressed my hand to my chest, and after a little it did seem that I felt something. “A shell,” I said. “Aha!” He shook his finger in the air. “A shell like a clam or like a conch?” “A conch.” “And what is in that shell? A snail?” “Nothing,” I said. “Air.” “Those are not the same,” he said. “Nothing is empty void, while air is what fills all else. It is breath and life and spirit, the words we speak.” My brother, the philosopher. Do you know how many gods are such? Only one other that I had met. The blue sky arched above us, but I was in that old dark hall again, with its manacles and blood. “I have a secret,” I said. Aeetes lifted his brows, amused. He thought it was a joke. I had never known anything he did not. “It was before you were born,” I said. Aeetes did not look at me while I told him about Prometheus. His mind worked best, he always said, without distractions. His eyes were fixed on the horizon. They were sharp as the eagle he was named for, and could pry into all the cracks of things, like water pricking at a leaky hull. When I was finished, he was silent a long time. At last he said: “Prometheus was a god of prophecy. He would have known he would be punished, and how. Yet he did it anyway.” I had not thought of that. How even as Prometheus took up the flame for mankind, he would have known he was walking towards the eagle and that desolate, eternal crag. Well enough,he had answered, when I had asked how he would be. “Who else knows this?” “No one.” “You are sure?” His voice had an urgency to it I was not used to. “You did not tell anyone?” “No,” I said. “Who else is there? Who would have believed me?” “True.” He nodded once. “You must tell no one else. You should not talk about it again, even with me. You are lucky Father did not find out.” “You think he would be so angry? Prometheus is his cousin.” He snorted. “We are all cousins, including the Olympians. You would make Father look like a fool who cannot control his offspring. He would throw you to the crows.” I felt my stomach clench with dread, and my brother laughed at the look on my face. “Exactly,” he said. “And for what? Prometheus is punished anyway. Let me give you some advice. Next time you’re going to defy the gods, do it for a better reason. I’d hate to see my sister turned to cinders for nothing.” Pasiphae was contracted in marriage. She had been angling for it a long time, sitting in my father’s lap and purring of how she longed to bear a good lord children. My brother Perses had been enlisted to help her, lifting goblets to toast her nubility at every meal. “Minos,” my father said from his feasting couch. “A son of Zeus and king of Crete.” “A mortal?” My mother sat up. “You said it would be a god.” “I said he would be an eternal son of Zeus, and so he is.” Perses sneered. “Prophecy talk. Does he die or not?” A flash in the room, searing as the fire’s heart. “Enough! Minos will rule all the other mortal souls in the afterlife. His name will go on through the centuries. It is done.” My brother dared say no more, nor my mother. Aeetes caught my eye, and I heard his words as if he spoke them.See? Not a good enough reason. I expected my sister to weep over her demotion. But when I looked, she was smiling. What that meant I could not say, my mind was following a different thread. A flush had spread over my skin. If Minos were there, so would his family be, his court, his advisers, his vassals and astronomers, his cupbearers, his servants and underservants. All those creatures Prometheus had given his eternity for. Mortals. On the wedding day, my father carried us across the sea in his golden chariot. The feast was to be held on Crete, in Minos’ great palace at Knossos. The walls were new-plastered and every surface hung with bright flowers, the tapestries glowed with richest saffron. Not only Titans would attend. Minos was a son of Zeus, and all the boot-licking Olympians would also come to pay their homage. The long colonnades filled up quickly with gods in their glory, clattering their adornments, laughing, casting glances to see who else had been invited. The thickest knot was around my father, immortals of every sort pressing in to congratulate him on his brilliant alliance. My uncles were especially pleased: Zeus was unlikely to move against us as long as the marriage held. From her bridal dais Pasiphae glowed lush as ripe fruit. Her skin was gold, and her hair the color of sun on polished bronze. Around her crowded a hundred eager nymphs, each more desperate than the last to tell her how beautiful she looked. I stood back, out of the crush. Titans passed before me: my aunt Selene, my uncle Nereus trailing seaweed, Mnemosyne, mother of memories, and her nine light-footed daughters. My eyes skimmed over, searching. I found them at last at the hall’s edge. A dim huddle of figures, heads bent together. Prometheus had told me they were each different, but all I could make out was an indistinguished crowd, each with the same dull and sweated skin, the same wrinkled robes. I moved closer. Their hair hung lank, their flesh drooped soft off their bones. I tried to imagine going up to them, touching my hand to that dying skin. The thought sent a shiver through me. I had heard by then the stories whispered among my cousins, of what they might do to nymphs they caught alone. The rapes and ravishments, the abuses. I found it hard to believe. They looked weak as mushroom gills. They kept their faces carefully down, away from all those divinities. Mortals had their own stories, after all, of what happened to those who mixed with gods. An ill-timed glance, a foot set in an impropitious spot, such things could bring down death and woe upon their families for a dozen generations. It was like a great chain of fear, I thought. Zeus at the top and my father just behind. Then Zeus’ siblings and children, then my uncles, and on down through all the ranks of river-gods and brine-lords and Furies and Winds and Graces, until it came to the bottom where we sat, nymphs and mortals both, each eyeing the other. Aeetes’ hand closed on my arm. “Not much to look at, are they? Come on, I found the Olympians.” I followed, my blood beating within me. I had never seen one before, those deities who rule from their celestial thrones. Aeetes drew me to a window overlooking a sun-dazzled courtyard. And there they were: Apollo, lord of the lyre and the gleaming bow. His twin, moonlit Artemis, the pitiless huntress. Hephaestus, blacksmith of the gods, who had made the chains that held Prometheus still. Brooding Poseidon, whose trident commands the waves, and Demeter, lady of bounty, whose harvests nourish all the world. I stared at them, gliding sleek in their power. The very air seemed to give way where they walked. “Do you see Athena?” I whispered. I had always liked the stories of her, gray-eyed warrior, goddess of wisdom, whose mind was swifter than the lightning bolt. But she was not there. Perhaps, Aeetes said, she was too proud to rub shoulders with earthbound Titans. Perhaps she was too wise to offer compliments as one among a crowd. Or perhaps she was there after all, but concealed even from the eyes of other divinities. She was one of the most powerful of the Olympians, she could do such a thing, and so observe the currents of power, and listen to our secrets. My neck turned to gooseflesh at the thought. “Do you think she listens to us even now?” “Don’t be foolish. She is here for the great gods. Look, Minos comes.” Minos, king of Crete, son of Zeus and a mortal woman. A demigod, his kind were called, mortal themselves but blessed by their divine parentage. He towered over his advisers, his hair thick as matted brush and his chest broad as the deck of a ship. His eyes reminded me of my father’s obsidian halls, shining darkly beneath his golden crown. Yet when he placed his hand on my sister’s delicate arm, suddenly he looked like a tree in winter, bare and shriveled-small. He knew it, I think, and glowered, which made my sister glitter all the more. She would be happy here, I thought. Or preeminent, which was the same to her. “There,” Aeetes said, leaning close to my ear. “Look.” He was pointing to a mortal, a man I had not noticed before, not quite so huddled as the rest. He was young, his head shaved clean in the Egyptian style, the skin of his face fitted comfortably into its lines. I liked him. His clear eyes were not smoked with wine like everybody else’s. “Of course you like him,” Aeetes said. “It is Daedalus. He is one of the wonders of the mortal world, a craftsman almost equal to a god. When I am my own king, I will collect such glories around me too.” “Oh? And when will you be king?” “Soon,” he said. “Father is giving me a kingdom.” I thought he was joking. “And may I live there?” “No,” he said. “It is mine. You will have to get your own.” His arm was through mine as it ever was, yet suddenly all was different, his voice swinging free, as if we were two creatures tied to separate cords, instead of to each other. “When?” I croaked. “After this. Father plans to take me straight.” He said it as if it were no more than a point of minor interest. I felt like I was turning to stone. I clung to him. “How could you not tell me?” I began. “You cannot leave me. What will I do? You do not know what it was like before, ” He drew my arms back from his neck. “There is no need for such a scene. You knew this would come. I cannot rot all my life underground, with nothing of my own.” What of me? I wanted to ask. Shall I rot? But he had turned away to speak to one of my uncles, and as soon as the wedded pair was in their bedchamber, he stepped onto my father’s chariot. In a whirl of gold, he was gone. Perses left a few days later. No one was surprised, those halls of my father were empty for him without my sister. He said he was going east, to live among the Persians. Their name is like mine, he said, fatuously. And I hear they raise creatures called demons, I would like to see one. My father frowned. He had taken against Perses ever since he had mocked him over Minos. “Why should they have demons, more than us?” Perses did not bother to answer. He would go through the ways of water, he did not need my father to ferry him.At least I will not have to hear that voice of yours anymore,was the last thing he said to me. In a handful of days, all my life had been unwound. I was a child again, waiting while my father drove his chariot, while my mother lounged by Oceanos’ riverbanks. I lay in our empty halls, my throat scraping with loneliness, and when I could not bear it any longer, I fled to Aeetes and my old deserted shore. There I found the stones Aeetes’ fingers had touched. I walked the sand his feet had turned. Of course he could not stay. He was a divine son of Helios, bright and shining, true-voiced and clever, with hopes of a throne. And I? I remembered his eyes as I had pleaded with him. I knew him well, and could read what was in them when he looked at me.Not a good enough reason. I sat on the rocks and thought of the stories I knew of nymphs who wept until they turned into stones and crying birds, into dumb beasts and slender trees, thoughts barked up for eternity. I could not even do that, it seemed. My life closed me in like granite walls. I should have spoken to those mortals, I thought. I could have begged among them for a husband. I was a daughter of Helios, surely one of those ragged men would have had me. Anything would be better than this. And that is when I saw the boat. Chapter Four. I knew of shipsfrom paintings, I had heard of them in stories. They were golden and huge as leviathans, their rails carved from ivory and horn. They were towed by grinning dolphins or else crewed by fifty black-haired nereids, faces silver as moonlight. This one had a mast thin as a sapling. Its sail hung skewed and fraying, its sides were patched. I remember the jump in my throat when the sailor lifted his face. Burnt it was, and shiny with sun. A mortal. Mankind was spreading across the world. Years had passed since my brother had first found that deserted land for our games. I stood behind a jut of cliff and watched as the man steered, skirting rocks and hauling at the nets. He looked nothing like the well-groomed nobles of Minos’ court. His hair was long and black, draggled from wave-spray. His clothes were worn, and his neck scabbed. Scars showed on his arms where fish scales had cut him. He did not move with unearthly grace, but strongly, cleanly, like a well-built hull in the waves. I could hear my pulse, loud in my ears. I thought again of those stories of nymphs ravished and abused by mortals. But this man’s face was soft with youth, and the hands that drew up his catch looked only swift, not cruel. Anyway, in the sky above me was my father, called the Watchman. If I was in danger, he would come. He was close to the shore by then, peering down into the water, tracking some fish I could not see. I took a breath and stepped forward onto the beach. “Hail, mortal.” He fumbled his nets but did not drop them. “Hail,” he said. “What goddess do I address?” His voice was gentle in my ears, sweet as summer winds. “Circe,” I said. “Ah.” His face was carefully blank. He told me much later it was because he had not heard of me and feared to give offense. He knelt on the rough boards. “Most reverend lady. Do I trespass on your waters?” “No,” I said. “I have no waters. Is that a boat?” Expressions passed across his face, but I could not read them. “It is,” he said. “I would like to sail upon it,” I said. He hesitated, then began to steer closer to the shore, but I did not know to wait. I waded out through the waves to him and pulled myself aboard. The deck was hot through my sandals, and its motion pleasing, a faint undulation, like I rode upon a snake. “Proceed,” I said. How stiff I was, dressed in my divine dignity that I did not even know I wore. And he was stiffer still. He trembled when my sleeve brushed his. His eyes darted whenever I addressed him. I realized with a shock that I knew such gestures. I had performed them a thousand times, for my father, and my grandfather, and all those mighty gods who strode through my days.The great chain of fear. “Oh, no,” I said to him. “I am not like that. I have scarcely any powers at all and cannot hurt you. Be comfortable, as you were.” “Thank you, kind goddess.” But he said it so flinchingly that I had to laugh. It was that laughter, more than my protestation, that seemed to ease him a little. Moment passed into moment, and we began to talk of the things around us: the fish jumping, a bird dipping overhead. I asked him how his nets were made, and he told me, warming to the subject, for he took great care with them. When I told him my father’s name, it sent him glancing at the sun and trembling worse than ever, but at day’s end no wrath had descended and he knelt to me and said that I must have blessed his nets, for they were the fullest they had ever been. I looked down at his thick, black hair, shining in the sunset light, his strong shoulders bowing low. This is what all those gods in our halls longed for, such worship. I thought perhaps he had not done it right, or more likely, I had not. All I wanted was to see his face again. “Rise,” I told him. “Please. I have not blessed your nets, I have no powers to do so. I am born from naiads, who govern fresh water only, and even their small gifts I lack.” “Yet,” he said, “may I return? Will you be here? For I have never known such a wondrous thing in all my life as you.” I had stood beside my father’s light. I had held Aeetes in my arms, and my bed was heaped with thick-wooled blankets woven by immortal hands. But it was not until that moment that I think I had ever been warm. “Yes,” I told him. “I will be here.” His name was Glaucos, and he came every day. He brought along bread, which I had never tasted, and cheese, which I had, and olives that I liked to see his teeth bite through. I asked him about his family, and he told me that his father was old and bitter, always storming and worrying about food, and his mother used to make herb simples but was broken now from too much labor, and his sister had five children already and was always sick and angry. All of them would be turned out of their cottage if they could not give their lord the tribute he levied. No one had ever confided so in me. I drank down every story like a whirlpool sucks down waves, though I could hardly understand half of what they meant, poverty and toil and human terror. The only thing that was clear was Glaucos’ face, his handsome brow and earnest eyes, wet a little from his griefs but smiling always when he looked at me. I loved to watch him at his daily tasks, which he did with his hands instead of a blink of power: mending the torn nets, cleaning off the boat’s deck, sparking the flint. When he made his fire, he would start painstakingly with small bits of dried moss placed just so, then the smaller twigs, then larger, building upwards and upwards. This art too, I did not know. Wood needed no coaxing for my father to kindle it. He saw me watching and rubbed self-consciously at his calloused hands. “I know I am ugly to you.” No, I thought. My grandfather’s halls are filled with shining nymphs and muscled river-gods, but I would rather gaze on you than any of them. I shook my head. He sighed. “It must be wonderful to be a god and never bear a mark.” “My brother once said it feels like water.” He considered. “Yes, I can imagine that. As if you are brimming, like an overfilled cup. What brother is that? You have not spoken of him before.” “He is gone to be a king far away. Aeetes, he is called.” The name felt strange on my tongue after so long. “I would have gone with him, but he said no.” “He sounds like a fool,” Glaucos said. “What do you mean?” He lifted his eyes to mine. “You are a golden goddess, beautiful and kind. If I had such a sister, I would never let her go.” Our arms would brush as he worked at the ship’s rail. When we sat, my dress lapped over his feet. His skin was warm and slightly roughened. Sometimes I would drop something, so he might pick it up, and our hands would meet. That day, he knelt on the beach, kindling a fire to cook his lunch. It was still one of my favorite things to watch, that simple, mortal miracle of flint and tinder. His hair hung sweetly into his eyes, and his cheeks glowed with the flame’s light. I found myself thinking of my uncle who had given him that gift. “I met him once,” I said. Glaucos had spitted a fish and was roasting it. “Who?” “Prometheus,” I said. “When Zeus punished him, I brought him nectar.” He looked up. “Prometheus,” he said. “Yes.” He was not usually so slow. “Fire-bearer.” “That is a story from a dozen generations ago.” “More than a dozen,” I said. “Watch out, your fish.” The spit had drooped from his hand, and the fish was blackening on the coals. He did not rescue it. His eyes were fixed on me. “But you are my age.” My face had tricked him. It looked as young as his. I laughed. “No. I am not.” He had been half slouched to one side, knees touching mine. Now he jerked upright, pulling away from me so fast I felt the cold where he had been. It surprised me. “Those years are nothing,” I said. “I made no use of them. You know as much of the world as I do.” I reached for his hand. He yanked it away. “How can you say that? How old are you? A hundred? Two hundred?” I almost laughed again. But his neck was rigid, and his eyes wide. The fish smoked between us in the fire. I had told him so little of my life. What was there to tell? Only the same cruelties, the same sneers at my back. In those days, my mother was in an especial ill humor. My father had begun to prefer his draughts to her, and her venom over it fell to me. She would curl her lip when she saw me.Circe is dull as a rock. Circe has less wit than bare ground. Circe’s hair is matted like a dog’s. If I have to hear that broken voice of hers once more. Of all our children, why must it be she who is left? No one else will have her.If my father heard, he gave no sign, only moved his game counters here and there. In the old days, I would have crept to my room with tear-stained cheeks, but since Glaucos’ coming it was all like bees without a sting. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It was only a stupid joke. I never met him, I only wished to. Never fear, we are the same age.” Slowly, his posture loosened. He blew out a breath. “Hah,” he said. “Can you imagine? If you had really been alive then?” He finished his meal. He threw the scraps to the gulls, then chased them wheeling to the sky. He turned back to grin at me, outlined against the silver waves, his shoulders lifting in his tunic. No matter how many fires I watched him make, I never spoke of my uncle again. One day, Glaucos’ boat came late. He did not anchor it, only stood upon its deck, his face stiff and grim. There was a bruise on his cheek, storm-wave dark. His father had struck him. “Oh!” My pulse leapt. “You must rest. Sit with me, and I will bring you water.” “No,” he said, and his voice was sharp as I had ever heard it. “Not today, not ever again. Father says I loaf and all our hauls are down. We will starve, and it is my fault.” “Yet come sit, and let me help,” I said. “You cannot do anything,” he said. “You told me so. You have no powers at all.” I watched him sail off. Then wildI turned and ran to my grandfather’s palace. Through its arched passageways I went, to the women’s halls, with their clatter of shuttles and goblets and the jangle of bracelets on wrists. Past the naiads, past the visiting nereids and dryads, to the oaken stool on the dais, where my grandmother ruled. Tethys, she was called, great nurse of the world’s waters, born like her husband at the dawn of ages from Mother Earth herself. Her robes puddled blue at her feet, and around her neck was wrapped a water-serpent like a scarf. Before her was a golden loom that held her weaving. Her face was old but not withered. Countless daughters and sons had been birthed from her flowing womb, and their descendants were still brought to her for blessing. I myself had knelt to her once. She had touched my forehead with the tips of her soft fingers.Welcome, child. I knelt again, now. “I am Circe, Perse’s daughter. You must help me. There is a mortal who needs fish from the sea. I cannot bless him, but you can.” “He is noble?” she asked. “In nature,” I said. “Poor in possessions, yet rich in spirit and courage, and shining like a star.” “And what does this mortal offer you in exchange?” “Offer me?” She shook her head. “My dear, they must always offer something, even if it is small, even if only wine poured at your spring, else they will forget to be grateful, after.” “I do no

Red Sorghum. By Mo Yan. ONE. Red Sorghum. The ninth day of the eighth lunar month, 1939. My father, a bandit’s offspring who had passed his fifteenth birthday, was joining the forces of Commander Yu Zhan’ao, a man destined to become a legendary hero, to ambush a Japanese convoy on the Jiao-Ping highway. Grandma, a padded jacket over her shoulders, saw them to the edge of the village. ‘Stop here,’ Commander Yu ordered her. She stopped. ‘Douguan, mind your foster-dad,’ she told my father. The sight of her large frame and the warm fragrance of her lined jacket chilled him. He shivered. His stomach growled. Commander Yu patted him on the head and said, ‘Let’s go, foster-son.’ Heaven and earth were in turmoil, the view was blurred. By then the soldiers’ muffled footsteps had moved far down the road. Father could still hear them, but a curtain of blue mist obscured the men themselves. Gripping tightly to Commander Yu’s coat, he nearly flew down the path on churning legs. Grandma receded like a distant shore as the approaching sea of mist grew more tempestuous; holding on to Commander Yu was like clinging to the railing of a boat. That was how Father rushed towards the uncarved granite marker that would rise above his grave in the bright-red sorghum fields of his hometown. A bare-assed little boy once led a white billy goat up to the weed-covered grave, and as it grazed in unhurried contentment, the boy pissed furiously on the grave and sang out: ‘The sorghum is red, the Japanese are coming, compatriots, get ready, fire your rifles and cannons, ’ Someone said that the little goatherd was me, but I don’t know. I had learned to love Northeast Gaomi Township with all my heart, and to hate it with unbridled fury. I didn’t realise until I’d grown up that Northeast Gaomi Township is easily the most beautiful and most repulsive, most unusual and most common, most sacred and most corrupt, most heroic and most bastardly, hardest-drinking and hardest-loving place in the world. The people of my father’s generation who lived there ate sorghum out of preference, planting as much of it as they could. In late autumn, during the eighth lunar month, vast stretches of red sorghum shimmered like a sea of blood. Tall and dense, it reeked of glory; cold and graceful, it promised enchantment; passionate and loving, it was tumultuous. The autumn winds are cold and bleak, the sun’s rays intense. White clouds, full and round, float in the tile-blue sky, casting full round purple shadows onto the sorghum fields below. Over decades that seem but a moment in time, lines of scarlet figures shuttled among the sorghum stalks to weave a vast human tapestry. They killed, they looted, and they defended their country in a valiant, stirring ballet that makes us unfilial descendants who now occupy the land pale by comparison. Surrounded by progress, I feel a nagging sense of our species’ regression. After leaving the village, the troops marched down a narrow dirt path, the tramping of their feet merging with the rustling of weeds. The heavy mist was strangely animated, kaleidoscopic. Tiny droplets of water pooled into large drops on Father’s face, clumps of hair stuck to his forehead. He was used to the delicate peppermint aroma and the slightly sweet yet pungent odour of ripe sorghum wafting over from the sides of the path, nothing new there. But as they marched through the heavy mist, his nose detected a new, sickly-sweet odour, neither yellow nor red, blending with the smells of peppermint and sorghum to call up memories hidden deep in his soul. Six days later, the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival. A bright round moon climbed slowly in the sky above the solemn, silent sorghum fields, bathing the tassels in its light until they shimmered like mercury. Among the chiselled flecks of moonlight Father caught a whiff of the same sickly odour, far stronger than anything you might smell today. Commander Yu was leading him by the hand through the sorghum, where three hundred fellow villagers, heads pillowed on their arms, were strewn across the ground, their fresh blood turning the black earth into a sticky muck that made walking slow and difficult. The smell took their breath away. A pack of corpse-eating dogs sat in the field staring at Father and Commander Yu with glinting eyes. Commander Yu drew his pistol and fired, a pair of eyes was extinguished. Another shot, another pair of eyes gone. The howling dogs scattered, then sat on their haunches once they were out of range, setting up a deafening chorus of angry barks as they gazed greedily, longingly at the corpses. The odour grew stronger. ‘Jap dogs!’ Commander Yu screamed. ‘Jap sons of bitches!’ He emptied his pistol, scattering the dogs without a trace. ‘Let’s go, son,’ he said. The two of them, one old and one young, threaded their way through the sorghum field, guided by the moon’s rays. The odour saturating the field drenched Father’s soul and would be his constant companion during the cruel months and years ahead. Sorghum stems and leaves sizzled fiercely in the mist. The Black Water River, which flowed slowly through the swampy lowland, sang in the spreading mist, now loud, now soft, now far, now near. As they caught up with the troops, Father heard the tramping of feet and some coarse breathing fore and aft. The butt of a rifle noisily bumped someone else’s. A foot crushed what sounded like a human bone. The man in front of Father coughed loudly. It was a familiar cough, calling to mind large ears that turned red with excitement. Large transparent ears covered with tiny blood vessels were the trademark of Wang Wenyi, a small man whose enlarged head was tucked down between his shoulders. Father strained and squinted until his gaze bored through the mist: there was Wang Wenyi’s head, jerking with each cough. Father thought back to when Wang was whipped on the parade ground, and how pitiful he had looked. He had just joined up with Commander Yu. Adjutant Ren ordered the recruits: Right face! Wang Wenyi stomped down joyfully, but where he intended to ‘face’ was anyone’s guess. Adjutant Ren smacked him across the backside with his whip, forcing a yelp from between his parted lips. Ouch, mother of my children! The expression on his face could have been a cry, or could have been a laugh. Some kids sprawled atop the wall hooted gleefully. Now Commander Yu kicked Wang Wenyi in the backside. ‘Who said you could cough?’ ‘Commander Yu.’ Wang Wenyi stifled a cough. ‘My throat itches.’ ‘So what? If you give away our position, it’s your head!’ ‘Yes, sir,’ Wang replied, as another coughing spell erupted. Father sensed Commander Yu lurching forward to grab Wang Wenyi around the neck with both hands. Wang wheezed and gasped, but the coughing stopped. Father also sensed Commander Yu’s hands release Wang’s neck; he even sensed the purple welts, like ripe grapes, left behind. Aggrieved gratitude filled Wang’s deep-blue, frightened eyes. The troops turned quickly into the sorghum, and Father knew instinctively that they were heading southeast. The dirt path was the only direct link between the Black Water River and the village. During the day it had a pale cast; the original black earth, the colour of ebony, had been covered by the passage of countless animals: cloven hoofprints of oxen and goats, semicircular hoofprints of mules, horses, and donkeys; dried road apples left by horses, mules, and donkeys; wormy cow chips; and scattered goat pellets like little black beans. Father had taken this path so often that later on, as he suffered in the Japanese cinder pit, its image often flashed before his eyes. He never knew how many sexual comedies my grandma had performed on this dirt path, but I knew. And he never knew that her naked body, pure as glossy white jade, had lain on the black soil beneath the shadows of sorghum stalks, but I knew. The surrounding mist grew more sluggish once they were in the sorghum field. The stalks screeched in secret resentment when the men and equipment bumped against them, sending large, mournful beads of water splashing to the ground. The water was ice-cold, clear and sparkling, and deliciously refreshing. Father looked up, and a large drop fell into his mouth. As the heavy curtain of mist parted gently, he watched the heads of sorghum stalks bend slowly down. The tough, pliable leaves, weighted down by the dew, sawed at his clothes and face. A breeze set the stalks above him rustling briefly; the gurgling of the Black Water River grew louder. Father had gone swimming so often in the Black Water River that he seemed born to it. Grandma said that the sight of the river excited him more than the sight of his own mother. At the age of five, he could dive like a duckling, his little pink asshole bobbing above the surface, his feet sticking straight up. He knew that the muddy riverbed was black and shiny, and as spongy as soft tallow, and that the banks were covered with pale-green reeds and plantain the colour of goose-down; coiling vines and stiff bone grass hugged the muddy ground, which was crisscrossed with the tracks of skittering crabs. Autumn winds brought cool air, and wild geese flew through the sky heading south, their formation changing from a straight line one minute to a V the next. When the sorghum turned red, hordes of crabs the size of horse hooves scrambled onto the bank at night to search for food, fresh cow dung and the rotting carcasses of dead animals, among the clumps of river grass. The sound of the river reminded Father of an autumn night during his childhood, when the foreman of our family business, Arhat Liu, named after Buddhist saints, took him crabbing on the riverbank. On that grey-purple night a golden breeze followed the course of the river. The sapphire-blue sky was deep and boundless, green-tinted stars shone brightly in the sky: the ladle of Ursa Major (signifying death), the basket of Sagittarius (representing life); Octans, the glass well, missing one of its tiles; the anxious Herd Boy (Altair), about to hang himself; the mournful Weaving Girl (Vega), about to drown herself in the river. Uncle Arhat had been overseeing the work of the family distillery for decades, and Father scrambled to keep up with him as he would his own grandfather. The weak light of the kerosene lamp bored a five-yard hole in the darkness. When water flowed into the halo of light, it was the cordial yellow of an overripe apricot. But cordial for only a fleeting moment, before it flowed on. In the surrounding darkness the water reflected a starry sky. Father and Uncle Arhat, rain capes over their shoulders, sat around the shaded lamp listening to the low gurgling of the river. Every so often they heard the excited screech of a fox calling to its mate in the sorghum fields beside the river. Father and Uncle Arhat sat quietly, listening with rapt respect to the whispered secrets of the land, as the smell of stinking river mud drifted over on the wind. Hordes of crabs attracted by the light skittered towards the lamp, where they formed a shifting, restless cloister. Father was so eager he nearly sprang to his feet, but Uncle Arhat held him by the shoulders. ‘Take it easy! Greedy eaters never get the hot gruel.’ Holding his excitement in check, Father sat still. The crabs stopped as soon as they entered the ring of lamplight, and lined up head to tail, blotting out the ground. A greenish glint issued from their shells, as countless pairs of button eyes popped from deep sockets on little stems. Mouths hidden beneath sloping faces released frothy strings of brazenly colourful bubbles. The long fibres on Father’s straw rain cape stood up. ‘Now!’ Uncle Arhat shouted. Father sprang into action before the shout died out, snatching two corners of the tightly woven net they’d spread on the ground beforehand; they raised it in the air, scooping up a layer of crabs and revealing a clear spot of riverbank beneath them. Quickly tying the ends together and tossing the net to one side, they rushed back and lifted up another piece of netting with the same speed and skill. The heavy bundles seemed to hold hundreds, even thousands of crabs. As Father followed the troops into the sorghum field, he moved sideways, crablike, overshooting the spaces between the stalks and bumping them hard, which caused them to sway and bend violently. Still gripping tightly to Commander Yu’s coat-tail, he was pulled along, his feet barely touching the ground. But he was getting sleepy. His neck felt stiff, his eyes were growing dull and listless, and his only thought was that as long as he could tag along behind Uncle Arhat to the Black Water River he’d never come back empty-handed. Father ate crab until he was sick of it, and so did Grandma. But even though they lost their appetite for it, they couldn’t bear to throw the uneaten ones away. So Uncle Arhat minced the leftovers and ground them under the bean-curd millstone, then salted the crab paste, which they ate daily, until it finally went bad and became mulch for the poppies. Apparently Grandma was an opium smoker, but wasn’t addicted, which was why she had the complexion of a peach, a sunny disposition, and a clear mind. The crab-nourished poppies grew huge and fleshy, a mixture of pinks, reds, and whites that assailed your nostrils with their fragrance. The black soil of my hometown, always fertile, was especially productive, and the people who tilled it were especially decent, strong-willed, and ambitious. The white eels of the Black Water River, like plump sausages with tapered ends, foolishly swallowed every hook in sight. Uncle Arhat had died the year before on the Jiao-Ping highway. His corpse, after being hacked to pieces, had been scattered around the area. As the skin was being stripped from his body, his flesh jumped and quivered, as if he were a huge skinned frog. Images of that corpse sent shivers up Father’s spine. Then he thought back to a night some seven or eight years earlier, when Grandma, drunk at the time, had stood in the distillery yard beside a pile of sorghum leaves, her arms around Uncle Arhat’s shoulders. ‘Uncle. don’t leave,’ she pleaded. ‘If not for the sake of the monk, stay for the Buddha. If not for the sake of the fish, stay for the water. If not for my sake, stay for little Douguan. You can have me, if you want. You’re like my own father.’ Father watched him push her away and swagger into the shed to mix fodder for the two large black mules who, when we opened our distillery, made us the richest family in the village. Uncle Arhat didn’t leave after all. Instead he became our foreman, right up to the day the Japanese confiscated our mules to work on the Jiao-Ping highway. Now Father and the others could hear long-drawn-out brays from the mules they had left behind in the village. Wide-eyed with excitement, he could see nothing but the congealed yet nearly transparent mist that surrounded him. Erect stalks of sorghum formed dense barriers behind a wall of vapour. Each barrier led to another, seemingly endless. He had no idea how long they’d been in the field, for his mind was focused on the fertile river roaring in the distance, and on his memories. He wondered why they were in such a hurry to squeeze through this packed, dreamy ocean of sorghum. Suddenly he lost his bearings. He listened carefully for a sign from the river, and quickly determined that they were heading east-southeast, towards the river. Once he had a fix on their direction, he understood that they would be setting an ambush for the Japanese, that they would be killing people, just as they had killed the dogs. By heading east-southeast, they would soon reach the Jiao-Ping highway, which cut through the swampy lowland from north to south and linked the two counties of Jiao and Pingdu. Japanese and their running dogs, Chinese collaborators, had built the highway with the forced labour of local conscripts. The sorghum was set in motion by the exhausted troops, whose heads and necks were soaked by the settling dew. Wang Wenyi was still coughing, even though he’d been the target of Commander Yu’s continuing angry outbursts. Father sensed that the highway was just up ahead, its pale-yellow outline swaying in front of him. Imperceptibly tiny openings began to appear in the thick curtain of mist, and one dew-soaked ear of sorghum after another stared sadly at Father, who returned their devout gaze. It dawned on him that they were living spirits: their roots buried in the dark earth, they soaked up the energy of the sun and the essence of the moon; moistened by the rain and dew, they understood the ways of the heavens and the logic of the earth. The colour of the sorghum suggested that the sun had already turned the obscured horizon a pathetic red. Then something unexpected occurred. Father heard a shrill whistle, followed by a loud burst from up ahead. ‘Who fired his weapon?’ Commander Yu bellowed. ‘Who’s the prick who did it?’ Father heard the bullet pierce the thick mist and pass through sorghum leaves and stalks, lopping off one of the heads. Everyone held his breath as the bullet screamed through the air and thudded to the ground. The sweet smell of gunpowder dissipated in the mist. Wang Wenyi screamed pitifully, ‘Commander, my head’s gone, Commander, my head’s gone, ’ Commander Yu froze momentarily, then kicked Wang Wenyi. ‘You dumb fuck!’ he growled. ‘How could you talk without a head?’ Commander Yu left my father standing there and went up to the head of the column. Wang Wenyi was still howling. Father pressed forward to catch a glimpse of the strange look on Wang’s face. A dark-blue substance was flowing on his cheek. Father reached out to touch it; hot and sticky, it smelled a lot like the mud of the Black Water River, but fresher. It overwhelmed the smell of peppermint and the pungent sweetness of sorghum and awakened in Father’s mind a memory that drew ever nearer: like beads, it strung together the mud of the Black Water River, the black earth beneath the sorghum, the eternally living past, and the unstoppable present. There are times when everything on earth spits out the stench of human blood. ‘Uncle,’ Father said, ‘you’re wounded.’ ‘Douguan, is that you? Tell your old uncle if his head’s still on his neck.’ ‘It’s there, Uncle, right where it’s supposed to be. Except your ear’s bleeding.’ Wang Wenyi reached up to touch his ear and pulled back a bloody hand, yelping in alarm. Then he froze as if paralysed. ‘Commander, I’m wounded! I’m wounded!’ Commander Yu came back to Wang, knelt down, and put his hands around Wang’s neck. ‘Stop screaming or I’ll throttle you!’ Wang Wenyi didn’t dare make a sound. ‘Where were you hit?’ Commander Yu asked him. ‘My ear.’ Wang was weeping. Commander Yu took a piece of white cloth from his waistband and tore it in two, then handed it to him. ‘Hold this over it, and no more noise. Stay in rank. You can bandage it when we reach the highway.’ Commander Yu turned to Father. ‘Douguan,’ he barked. Father answered, and Commander Yu walked off holding him by the hand, followed by the whimpering Wang Wenyi. The offending discharge had been the result of carelessness by the big fellow they called Mute, who was up front carrying a rake on his shoulder. The rifle slung over his back had gone off when he stumbled. Mute was one of Commander Yu’s old bandit friends, a greenwood hero who had eaten fistcakes in the sorghum fields. One of his legs was shorter than the other, a prenatal injury, and he limped when he walked, but that didn’t slow him down. Father was a little afraid of him. At about dawn, the massive curtain of mist finally lifted, just as Commander Yu and his troops emerged onto the Jiao-Ping highway. In my hometown, August is the misty season, possibly because there’s so much swampy lowland. Once he stepped onto the highway, Father felt suddenly light and nimble; with extra spring in his step, he let go of Commander Yu’s coat. Wang Wenyi, on the other hand, wore a crestfallen look as he held the cloth to his injured ear. Commander Yu crudely wrapped it for him, covering up half his head. Wang gnashed his teeth in pain. ‘The heavens have smiled on you,’ Commander Yu said. ‘My blood’s all gone,’ Wang whimpered, ‘I can’t go on!’ ‘Bullshit!’ Commander Yu exclaimed. ‘It’s no worse than a mosquito bite. You haven’t forgotten your three sons, have you?’ Wang hung his head and mumbled, ‘No, I haven’t forgotten.’ The butt of the long-barrelled fowling piece over his shoulder was the colour of blood. A flat metal gunpowder pouch rested against his hip. Remnants of the dissipating mist were scattered throughout the sorghum field. There were neither animal nor human footprints in the gravel, and the dense walls of sorghum on the deserted highway made the men feel that something ominous was in the air. Father knew all along that Commander Yu’s troops numbered no more than forty, deaf, mute, and crippled included. But when they were quartered in the village, they had stirred things up so much, with chickens squawking and dogs yelping, that you’d have thought it was a garrison command. Out on the highway, the soldiers huddled so closely together they looked like an inert snake. Their motley assortment of weapons included shotguns, fowling pieces, ageing Hanyang rifles, plus a cannon that fired scale weights and was carried by two brothers, Fang Six and Fang Seven. Mute was toting a rake with twenty-six metal tines, as were three other soldiers. Father still didn’t know what an ambush was, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have known why anyone would take four rakes to the event. Two. I returned to Northeast Gaomi Township to compile a family chronicle, focusing on the famous battle of the banks of the Black Water River that involved my father and ended with the death of a Jap general. An old woman of ninety-two sang to me, to the accompaniment of bamboo clappers. ‘Northeast Gaomi Township, so many men; at Black Water River the battle began; Commander Yu raised his hand, cannon fire to heaven; Jap souls scattered across the plain, never to rise again; the beautiful champion of women, Dai Fenglian, ordered rakes for a barrier, the Jap attack broken.’ The wizened old woman was as bald as a clay pot; the protruding tendons on her chapped hands were like strips of melon rind. She had survived the Mid-Autumn Festival massacre in ’39 only because her ulcerated legs had made walking impossible, and her husband had hidden her in a yam cellar. The heavens had smiled on her. The Dai Fenglian in her clapper-song was my grandma. I listened with barely concealed excitement, for her tale proved that the strategy of stopping the Jap convoy with rakes had sprung from the mind of my own kin, a member of the weaker sex. No wonder my grandma is feted as a trailblazer of the anti-Japanese resistance and a national hero. At the mention of my grandma, the old woman grew expansive. Her narration was choppy and confused, like a shower of leaves at the mercy of the wind. She said that my grandma had the smallest feet of any woman in the village, and that no other distillery had the staying power of ours. The thread of her narrative evened out as she talked of the Jiao-Ping highway: ‘When the highway was extended this far. sorghum only waist-high. Japs conscripted all able-bodied workers. Working for the Japs, slacked off, sabotage. took your family’s two big black mules. built a stone bridge over the Black Water River. Arhat, your family’s foreman. something fishy between him and your grandma, so everyone said. Aiyaya, when your grandma was young she sowed plenty of wild oats. Your dad was a capable boy, killed his first man at fifteen, eight or nine out of every ten bastard kids turn out bad. Arhat hamstrung the mule. Japs caught him and skinned him alive. Japs butchered people, shit in their pots, and pissed in their basins. I went for water once that year, guess what I found in my bucket, a human head with the pigtail still attached.’ Arhat Liu played a significant role in my family’s history, but there is no hard evidence that he had an affair with my grandma, and, to tell the truth, I don’t believe it. I understood the logic of what the old clay-pot was saying, but it still embarrassed me. Since Uncle Arhat treated my father like a grandson, that would make me sort of his great-grandson; and if my great-granddad had an affair with my grandma, that’s incest, isn’t it? But that’s hogwash, since my grandma was Uncle Arhat’s boss, not his daughter-in-law, and their relationship was sealed by wages, not by blood. He was a faithful old hand who embellished the history of our family and brought it greater glory than it would have had otherwise. Whether my grandma ever loved him or whether he ever lay down beside her on the kang has nothing to do with morality. What if she did love him? I believe she could have done anything she desired, for she was a hero of the resistance, a trailblazer for sexual liberation, a model of women’s independence. In country records I discovered that in 1938, the twenty-seventh year of the Republic, four hundred thousand mandays were spent by local workers from Gaomi, Pingdu, and Jiao counties in the service of the Japanese army to build the Jiao-Ping highway. The agricultural loss was incalculable, and the villages bordering the highway were stripped clean of draught animals. It was then that Arhat Liu, a conscript himself, took a hoe to the legs of our captured mule. He was caught, and the next day the Japanese soldiers tied him to a tethering post, skinned him alive, and mutilated him in front of his compatriots. There was no fear in his eyes, and a stream of abuse poured from his mouth up until the moment he died. Three. She told it exactly like it was. When construction of the Jiao-Ping highway reached our place, the sorghum in the fields was only waist-high. Except for a handful of tiny villages, two crossing rivers, and a few dozen winding dirt paths, the marshy plain, which measured sixty by seventy-odd li, or about twenty by twenty-five miles, was covered with sorghum that waved like an ocean of green. From our village we had a clear view of White Horse Mountain, an enormous rock formation on the northern edge of the plain. Peasants tending the sorghum looked up to see White Horse and down to see black soil that soaked up their sweat and filled their hearts with contentment. When they heard that the Japanese were building a highway across the plain, they grew restive, awaiting the calamity they knew was coming. The Japanese said they would come, and they were as good as their word. My father was sleeping when the Japs and their puppet soldiers came to our village to conscript peasant labourers and confiscate their mules and horses. He was awakened by a disturbance near the distillery. Grandma dragged him over to the compound as fast as her bamboo-shoot feet would carry her. Back then there were a dozen or so huge vats in the compound, each brimming with top-quality white liquor, the aroma of which hung over the entire village. Two khaki-clad Japanese soldiers with fixed bayonets stood there as a couple of black-clad Chinese, rifles slung over their backs, untied our two big black mules from a catalpa tree. Uncle Arhat kept trying to get to the shorter puppet soldier, who was untying the tethers, but the taller comrade forced him back with the muzzle of his rifle. Since Uncle Arhat was wearing only a thin shirt in the early-summer heat, his exposed chest already showed a welter of circular bruises. ‘Brothers,’ he pleaded, ‘we can talk this over, we can talk it over.’ ‘Get the hell out of here, you old bastard,’ the taller soldier barked. ‘Those animals belong to the owner,’ Uncle Arhat said. ‘You can’t take them.’ The puppet soldier growled menacingly, ‘If I hear another word out of you, I’ll shoot your little prick off!’ The Japanese soldiers stood like clay statues, holding their rifles in front of them. As Grandma and my father entered the compound, Uncle Arhat wailed, ‘They’re taking our mules!’ ‘Sir,’ Grandma said, ‘we’re good people.’ The Japanese squinted and grinned at her. The shorter puppet soldier freed the mules and tried to lead them away; but they raised their heads stubbornly and refused to budge. His buddy walked up and prodded one of them in the rump with his rifle; the angered animal pawed the ground with its rear hooves, its metal shoes glinting in the mud that sprayed the soldier in the face. The tall soldier pointed his rifle at Uncle Arhat and bellowed, ‘Come over here and take these mules to the construction site, you old bastard!’ Uncle Arhat squatted on the ground without making a sound, so one of the Japanese soldiers walked up and waved his rifle in front of Uncle Arhat’s face. ‘Minliwala, yalalimin!’ he grunted. With the shiny bayonet glinting in front of his eyes, Uncle Arhat sat down. The soldier thrust his bayonet forward, opening a tiny hole in Uncle Arhat’s shiny scalp. Beginning to tremble, Grandma blurted out, ‘Do it, Uncle, take the mules for them.’ The other Jap soldier edged up close to Grandma, and Father noticed how young and handsome he was, and how his dark eyes sparkled. But when he smiled, his lip curled to reveal yellow buck teeth. Grandma staggered over to Uncle Arhat, whose wound was oozing blood that spread across his scalp and down his face. The grinning Japanese soldiers drew closer. Grandma laid her hands on Uncle Arhat’s scalp, then rubbed them on her face. Pulling her hair, she leaped to her feet like a madwoman, her mouth agape. She looked three parts human and seven parts demon. The startled Japanese soldiers froze. ‘Sir,’ the tall puppet soldier said, ‘that woman’s crazy.’ One of the Jap soldiers mumbled something as he fired a shot over Grandma’s head. She sat down hard and began to wail. The tall puppet soldier used his rifle to prod Uncle Arhat, who got to his feet and took the tethers from the smaller soldier. The mules looked up; their legs trembled as they followed him out of the compound. The street was chaotic with mules, horses, oxen, and goats. Grandma wasn’t crazy. The minute the Japs and the puppet soldiers left, she removed the wooden lid from one of the wine vats and looked at her frightful, bloody reflection in the mirrorlike surface. Father watched the tears on her cheeks turn red. She washed her face in the wine, turning it red. Like the mules he was leading, Uncle Arhat was forced to work on the road that was taking shape in the sorghum field. The highway on the southern bank of the Black Water River was nearly completed, and cars and trucks were driving up on the newly laid roadway with loads of stone and yellow gravel, which they dumped on the riverbank. Since there was only a single wooden span across the river, the Japanese had decided to build a large stone bridge. Vast areas of sorghum on both sides of the highway had been levelled, until the ground seemed covered by an enormous green blanket. In the field north of the river, where black soil had been laid on either side of the road, dozens of horses and mules were pulling stone rollers to level two enormous squares in the sea of sorghum. Men led the animals back and forth through the field, trampling the tender stalks, which had been bent double by the shod hooves, then flattening them with stone rollers turned dark green by the plant juices. The pungent aroma of green sorghum hung heavily over the construction site. Uncle Arhat, who was sent to the southern bank of the river to haul rocks to the other side, reluctantly handed the mules over to an old geezer with festering eyes. The little wooden bridge swayed so violently it seemed about to topple as he crossed to the southern bank, where a Chinese overseer tapped him on the head with a purplish rattan whip and said, ‘Start lugging rocks to the other side.’ Uncle Arhat rubbed his eyes, the blood from his scalp wound had soaked his eyebrows. He picked up an average-sized rock and carried it to the other side, where the old geezer stood with the mules. ‘Use them sparingly,’ he said. ‘They belong to the family I work for.’ The old geezer lowered his head numbly, then turned and led the mules over to where teams of animals were working on the connecting road. The shiny rumps of the black mules reflected specks of sunlight. His head still bleeding, Uncle Arhat hunkered down, scooped up some black dirt, and rubbed it on the wound. A dull, heavy pain travelled all the way down to his toes. Armed Jap and puppet soldiers stood on the fringes of the construction site; the overseer, whip in hand, roamed the site like a spectre. The eyes of the frightened labourers rolled as they watched Uncle Arhat, his head a mass of blood and mud, pick up a rock and take a couple of steps. Suddenly he heard a crack behind him, followed by a drawn-out, stinging pain on his back. He dropped the rock and looked at the grinning overseer. ‘Your honour, if you have something to say, say it. Why hit me?’ Without a word, the grinning overseer flicked his whip in the air and wrapped it around Uncle Arhat’s waist, all but cutting him in half. Two streams of hot, stinging tears oozed out of the corners of Uncle Arhat’s eyes, and blood rushed to his head, which began to throb as though it might split open. ‘Your honour!’ Uncle Arhat protested. His honour whipped him again. ‘Your honour,’ Uncle Arhat said, ‘why are you hitting me?’ His honour flicked the whip and grinned until his eyes were mere slits: ‘Just giving you a taste, you son of a bitch.’ Uncle Arhat choked off his sobs as his eyes pooled with tears. He bent over, picked up a large rock from the pile, and staggered with it towards the little bridge. The jagged edges dug deeply into his gut and his rib cage, but he didn’t feel the pain. The overseer stood rooted to the spot, whip in hand, and Uncle Arhat trembled with fear as he lugged the rock past his gaze. With the whip cutting into his neck he fell forward, landed on his knees, and hugged the rock to his chest. It tore the skin on his hands and left a deep gash in his chin. Stunned, he began to blubber like a baby; a purple tongue of flame licked out in the emptiness inside his skull. He strained to pull his hands out from under the rock, stood up, and arched his back like a threatened, skinny old tomcat. Just then a middle-aged man, grinning from ear to ear, walked up. He took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and held one up to the overseer, who parted his lips to accept the offering, then waited for the man to light it for him. ‘Revered one,’ the man said, ‘that stinking blockhead isn’t worth getting angry over.’ The overseer exhaled the smoke through his nose and said nothing. Uncle Arhat stared at the whip in his twitching yellowed fingers. The middle-aged man stuffed the pack of cigarettes into the pocket of the overseer, who seemed not to notice; then, snorting lightly, he patted his pocket, turned, and walked away. ‘Are you new here, elder brother?’ the man asked. Uncle Arhat said he was. ‘You didn’t give him anything to grease the skids?’ ‘Those mad dogs dragged me here against my will.’ ‘Give him a little money or a pack of cigarettes. He doesn’t hit the hard workers, and he doesn’t hit the slackers. The only ones he hits are those who have eyes but won’t see.’ All that morning, Uncle Arhat desperately lugged rocks, like a man without a soul. The scab on his scalp, baked by the sun, caused terrible pain as it dried and cracked. His hands were raw and bloody, and the stiffened gash on his chin made him drool. The purplish flame kept licking at the inside of his skull, sometimes strong, sometimes weak, but never dying out completely. At noon a brown truck drove up the barely negotiable road. Dimly Uncle Arhat heard a shrill whistle and watched the labourers stumble up to the truck. He sat mindlessly on the ground, showing no interest in the truck. The middle-aged man walked over and pulled him to his feet. ‘Elder brother, come on, it’s mealtime. Try some Japanese rice.’ Uncle Arhat stood up and followed him. Large buckets of snowy white rice were handed down from the truck, along with a basket of white ceramic bowls with blue floral patterns. A fat Chinese stood next to the baskets, handing bowls to the men as they filed past. A skinny Chinese stood beside the buckets, ladling rice. The labourers stood around the truck, wolfing down their food, bare hands serving as chopsticks. The overseer walked up, whip in hand, the enigmatic grin still on his face. The flame in Uncle Arhat’s skull blazed, illuminating thoughts of the hard morning that he had tried to cast off. Armed Japanese and puppet sentries walked up and stood around a galvanised-iron bucket to eat their lunch. A guard dog with a long snout and trimmed ears sat behind the bucket, its tongue lolling as it watched the labourers. Uncle Arhat counted the dozen or so Japs and the dozen or so puppet soldiers standing around the bucket eating their lunch; the word ‘escape’ flashed into his mind. Escape! If he could make it to the sorghum field, these fuckers wouldn’t be able to catch him. The soles of his feet were hot and sweaty; the moment the idea to flee entered his mind, he grew fidgety and anxious. Something was hidden behind the calm, cold grin on the face of the overseer. Whatever it was, it made Uncle Arhat’s thoughts grow muddled. The fat Chinese took the bowls from the labourers before they were finished. They licked their lips and stared longingly at kernels of rice stuck to the sides of the buckets, but didn’t dare move. A mule on the northern bank of the river brayed shrilly. Uncle Arhat recognised the familiar sound. Tethered to rolling stones beside the newly ploughed roadbed, the listless mules nibbled stalks and leaves of sorghum that had been trampled into the earth. That afternoon a man in his twenties darted into the sorghum field when he thought the overseer wasn’t looking. A bullet followed his path of retreat. He lay motionless on the fringe of the field. The brown truck drove up again as the sun was sinking in the west. Uncle Arhat’s digestive system, used to sorghum, was intent on ridding itself of this mildewy white rice, but he forced the food past the knots in his throat. The thought of escape was stronger than ever; he longed to see his own compound, where the pungent odour of wine pervaded the air, in that village a dozen or so li away. The distillery hands had all fled with the arrival of the Japanese, and the wine cooker now stood cold. Even more he longed to see my grandma and my father. He hadn’t forgotten the warmth and contentment she had bestowed upon him alongside the pile of sorghum leaves. After dinner the labourers were herded into an enclosure of fir stakes covered with tarpaulins. Wires the thickness of mung beans had been strung between the stakes, and the gate was made of thick metal rods. The Jap and puppet soldiers were billeted in separate tents several yards away; the guard dog was tethered to the flap of the Jap tent. Two lanterns hung from a tall post at the entrance of the enclosure, around which soldiers took turns at sentry duty. Mules and horses were tethered to posts in a razed section of the sorghum field west of the enclosure. The stench inside the enclosure was suffocating. Some of the men snored loudly; others got up to piss in a tin pail, raising a noisy liquid tattoo, like pearls falling onto a jade plate. The lanterns cast a pale light, under which the sentries’ long shadows flickered. As the night stretched on, the cold became unbearable, and Uncle Arhat couldn’t sleep. With his thoughts focused on escape, he lay there not daring to move; eventually he fell into a muddled sleep. In his dream his head felt as though it were being carved by a sharp knife, while his hand felt seared as if he clasped a branding iron. He awoke covered in sweat; his pants were soaked with piss. The shrill crow of a rooster floated over from the distant village. The mules and horses pawed the ground and snorted. Stars winked slyly through holes in the tattered tarpaulin above him. The man who had come to his aid that day quietly sat up. Even in the relative darkness of the enclosure, Uncle Arhat could see his blazing eyes, and could tell that he was no ordinary man. He lay there, watching silently. As the man knelt in the enclosure opening, he raised his arms slowly and deliberately. Uncle Arhat’s eyes were riveted on his back and his head, around which hung an aura of mystery. The man took a deep breath, cocked his head, and thrust out his hands, like arrows from a bow, to grab two metal rods. A green glare shot from his eyes, and seemed to crackle when it struck an object. The metal rods silently parted, admitting more light into the enclosure from the lanterns and overhead stars, and revealing the shoe of a sentry. Uncle Arhat saw a dark shadow dart out of the enclosure. The Jap sentry grunted, then, in the man’s vicelike grip, crumpled to the ground. The man picked up the Jap’s rifle and slipped silently into the darkness. It took Uncle Arhat a moment to realise what had happened. The middle-aged man had shown him the way to escape! Cautiously, he crawled out through the opening. The dead Jap lay on the ground, face up, one leg still twitching. After crawling into the sorghum field, Uncle Arhat straightened up and followed the furrows, taking care not to bump the stalks and get them rustling. He found his way to the bank of the Black Water River, where the three stars, Rigel, Betelgeuse, and Bellatrix, hung directly overhead. A heavy predawn darkness had fallen around him. Stars glistened in the water. As he stood briefly on the riverbank, he shivered from the cold, his teeth chattered, and the ache in his chin spread to his cheeks and ears, finally merging with the throbbing pain in his festering scalp. The crisp air of freedom, filtered through the juices of the sorghum plants, entered his nostrils, his lungs, and his intestines. The ghostly light of the two lanterns shone weakly through the mist; the dark outline of the fir-stake enclosure was like an immense graveyard. Astonished at having got away so easily, he strode onto the rickety wooden bridge, above splashing fish and rippling water, as a shooting star split the heavens. It was as though nothing had happened. He was free to return to his village to let his wounds mend and to go on living. But as he was crossing the bridge, he heard the plaintive braying of a mule on the southern bank. He turned back for Grandma’s mules. This decision would lead to a grand tragedy. Horses and mules had been tied to a dozen or more tethering posts not far from the enclosure, in an area saturated with their foul-smelling urine. The horses were snorting and eating sorghum stalks; the mules were gnawing on the tethering posts and shitting loose stool. Uncle Arhat, stumbling three times for every step, stole in among them, where he smelled the welcome odour of our two big black mules and spotted their familiar shapes. Time to free his comrades in suffering. But the mules, strangers to the world of reason, greeted him with flying hooves. ‘Black mules,’ Uncle Arhat mumbled, ‘black mules, we can run away together!’ The irate mules pawed the earth to protect their territory from their master, who was unaware that the smell of his dried blood and new wounds had changed his identity to them. Confused and upset, he stepped forward, and was knocked down by a flying hoof. As he lay on the ground, his side started turning numb. The mule was still bucking and kicking, its steel-crescent shoes glinting like little moons. Uncle Arhat’s hip swelled up painfully. He clambered to his feet, but fell back. As soon as he hit the ground, he struggled back up. A thin-voiced rooster in the village crowed once more, as the darkness began to give way to a glimmer of stars that illuminated the mules’ rumps and eyeballs. ‘Damned beasts!’ With anger rising in his heart, he stumbled around the area looking for a weapon. At the construction site of an irrigation ditch he found a sharp metal hoe. Now armed, he walked and cursed loudly, forgetting all about the men and their dog no more than a hundred paces distant. He felt free, fear is all that stands in the way of freedom. A red solar halo crumbled as the sun rose in the east, and in the predawn light the sorghum was so still it seemed ready to burst. Uncle Arhat walked up to the mules, the rosy colour of dawn in his eyes and bitter loathing in his heart. The mules stood calmly, motionlessly. Uncle Arhat raised his hoe, took aim on the hind leg of one of them, and swung with all his might. A cold shadow fell on the leg. The mule swayed sideways a couple of times, then straightened up, as a brutish, violent, stupefying, wrathful bray erupted from its head. The wounded animal then arched its rump, sending a shower of hot blood splashing down on Uncle Arhat’s face. Seeing an opening, he swung at the other hind leg. A sigh escaped from the black mule as its rump settled earthwards and it sat down hard, propped up by its forlegs, its neck jerked taut by the tether; it bleated to the blue-grey heavens through its gaping mouth. The hoe, pinned beneath its rump, jerked Uncle Arhat into a squatting position. Mustering all his strength, he managed to pull it free. The second mule stood stupidly, eyeing its fallen comrade and braying piteously, as though pleading for its life. When Uncle Arhat approached, dragging his hoe behind him, the mule backed up until the tether seemed about to part and the post began to make cracking sounds. Dark-blue rays of light flowed from its fist-sized eyeballs. ‘Scared? You damned beast! Where’s your arrogance now? You evil, ungrateful, parasitic bastard! You ass-kissing, treacherous son of a bitch!’ As he spat out wrathful obscenities, he raised his hoe and swung at the animal’s long, rectangular face. It missed, striking the tethering post. By twisting the handle up and down, back and forth, he finally managed to free the head from the wood. The mule struggled so violently that its rear legs arched like bows, its scrawny tail was noisily sweeping the ground. Uncle Arhat took careful aim at the animal’s face, crack, the hoe landed smack on its broad forehead, emitting a resounding clang as metal struck bone, the reverberation passing through the wooden handle and stinging Uncle Arhat’s arms. Not a sound emerged from the black mule’s closed mouth. Its legs and hooves jerked and twitched furiously before it crashed to the ground like a capsized wall, snapping the tether in two, with one end hanging limply from the post and the other coiled beside the dead animal’s head. Uncle Arhat watched quietly, his arms at his sides. The shiny wooden handle buried in the mule’s head pointed to heaven at a jaunty angle. A barking dog, human shouts, dawn. The curved outline of a blood-red sun rose above the sorghum field to the east, its rays shining down on the black hole of Uncle Arhat’s open mouth. Four. The troops emerged onto the riverbank in a column, with the red sun, which had just broken through the mist, shining down on them. Like everyone else’s, half of my father’s face was red, the other half green; and, like everyone else, he was watching the mist break up over the Black Water River. A fourteen-arch stone bridge connected the southern and northern sections of the highway. The original wooden bridge remained in place to the west, although three or four spans had fallen into the river, leaving only the brown posts, which obstructed the flow of the white foam on top of the water. The reds and greens of the river poking through the dissipating mist were horrifyingly sombre. From the dike, the view to the south was of an endless panorama of sorghum, level and smooth and still, a sea of deeply red, ripe faces. A collective body, united in a single magnanimous thought. Father was too young then to describe the sight in such flowery terms, that’s my doing. Sorghum and men waited for time’s flower to bear fruit. The highway stretched southward, a narrowing ribbon of road that was ultimately swallowed up by fields of sorghum. At its farthest point, where sorghum merged with the pale vault of heaven, the sunrise presented a bleak and solemn, yet stirring sight. Gripped by curiosity, Father looked at the mesmerised guerrillas. Where were they from? Where were they going? Why were they setting an ambush? What would they do when it was over? In the deathly hush, the sound of water splashing over the bridge posts seemed louder and crisper than before. The mist, atomised by the sunlight, settled into the stream, turning the Black Water River from a deep red to a golden red, as though ablaze. A solitary, limp yellow water-plant floated by, its once fiery blooms hanging in withered pallor among the leafy grooves like silkworms. It’s crab-catching season again! Father was reminded. The autumn winds are up, the air is chilled, a flock of wild geese is flying south. Uncle Arhat shouts, ‘Now, Douguan, now!’ The soft, spongy mud of the bank is covered with the elaborate patterns of skittering claws. Father could smell the delicate, fishy odour wafting over from the river. ‘Take cover behind the dike, all of you,’ Commander Yu said. ‘Mute, set up your rakes.’ Mute slipped some loops of wire off his shoulder and tied the four large rakes together, then grunted to his comrades to help him carry the chain of rakes over to the spot where the stone bridge and highway met. ‘Take cover, men,’ Commander Yu ordered. ‘Stay down till the Jap convoy is on the bridge and Detachment Leader Leng’s troops have cut off their line of retreat. Don’t fire till I give the order; then cut those Jap bastards to pieces and let them feed the eels and crabs.’ Commander Yu signalled to Mute, who nodded and led half the men into the sorghum field west of the highway to lie in ambush. Wang Wenyi followed Mute’s troops to the west, but was sent back. ‘I want you here with me,’ Commander Yu said. ‘Scared?’ ‘No,’ Wang Wenyi said, even though he nodded spiritedly. Commander Yu had the Fang brothers set up their cannon atop the dike, then turned to Bugler Liu. ‘Old Liu, as soon as we open fire, sound your horn for all you’re worth. That scares the hell out of the Japs. Do you hear me?’ Bugler Liu was another of Commander Yu’s longtime buddies, dating back from when he was a sedan bearer and Liu was a funeral musician. Now he held his horn like a rifle. ‘I’m warning you guys,’ Commander Yu said to his men. ‘I’ll shoot any one of you who turns chicken. We have to put on a good show for Leng and his men. Those bastards like to come on strong with their flags and bugles. Well, that’s not my style. He thinks he can get us to join them, but I’ll get him to join me instead.’ As the men sat among the sorghum plants, Fang Six took out his pipe and tobacco and his steel and flint. The steel was black, the flint the deep red of a boiled chicken liver. The flint crackled as it struck the steel, sending sparks flying, great big sparks, one of which landed on the sorghum wick he was holding. As he blew on it, a wisp of white smoke curled upward, turning the wick red. He lit his pipe and took a deep puff. Commander Yu exhaled loudly and crinkled his nose. ‘Put that out,’ he said. ‘Do you think the Japs will cross the bridge if they smell smoke?’ Fang Six took a couple of quick puffs before snuffing out his pipe and putting it away. ‘Okay, you guys, flatten out on the slope so we’ll be ready when the Japs come.’ Nervousness set in as the troops lay on the slope, weapons in hand, knowing they would soon face a formidable enemy. Father lay alongside Commander Yu, who asked him, ‘Scared?’ ‘No!’ ‘Good,’ Commander Yu said. ‘You’re your foster-dad’s boy, all right! You’ll be my dispatch orderly. Don’t leave my side once it starts. I’ll need you to convey orders.’ Father nodded. His eyes were fastened greedily on the pistols stuck in Commander Yu’s belt, one big, one small. The big one was a German automatic, the small one a French Browning. Each had an interesting history. The word ‘Gun!’ escaped from his mouth. ‘You want a gun?’ Father nodded. ‘Do you know how to use one?’ ‘Yes!’ Commander Yu took the Browning out of his belt and examined it carefully. It was well used, the enamel long gone. He pulled back the bolt, ejecting a copper-jacketed bullet, which he tossed in the air, caught, and shoved back into the chamber. ‘Here!’ he said, handing it over. ‘Use it the way I did.’ Father took the pistol from him, and as he held it he thought back to a couple of nights earlier, when Commander Yu had used it to shatter a wine cup. A crescent moon had climbed into the sky and was pressing down on withered branches. Father carried a jug and a brass key out to the distillery to get some wine for Grandma. He opened the gate. The compound was absolutely still, the mule pen pitch-black, the distillery suffused with the stench of fermenting grain. When he took the lid off one of the vats in the moonlight, he saw the reflection of his gaunt face in the mirrorlike surface of wine. His eyebrows were short, his lips thin; he was surprised by his own ugliness. He dunked the jug into the vat of wine, which gurgled as it filled. After lifting it out, he changed his mind and poured the wine back, recalling the vat in which Grandma had washed her bloody face. Now she was inside, drinking with Commander Yu and Detachment Leader Leng, who was getting pretty drunk, no match for the other two. Father walked up to a second vat, the lid of which was held in place by a millstone. After putting his jug on the ground, he strained to remove the millstone, which rolled away and crashed up against yet another vat, punching a hole in the bottom, through which wine began to seep. Ignoring the leaky vat, he removed the lid from the one in front of him, and immediately smelled the blood of Uncle Arhat. The two faces, of Uncle Arhat and Grandma, appeared and reappeared in the wine vat. Father dunked the jug into the vat, filled it with blood-darkened wine, and carried it inside. Candles burned brightly on the table, around which Commander Yu and Detachment Leader Leng were glaring at each other and breathing heavily. Grandma stood between them, her left hand resting on Leng’s revolver, her right hand on Commander Yu’s Browning pistol. Father heard Grandma say, ‘Even if you can’t agree, you mustn’t abandon justice and honour. This isn’t the time or place to fight. Take your fury out on the Japanese.’ Commander Yu spat out angrily, ‘You can’t scare me with the Wang regiment’s flags and bugles, you prick. I’m king here. I ate fistcakes for ten years, and I don’t give a damn about that fucking Big Claw Wang!’ Detachment Leader Leng sneered. ‘Elder Brother Zhan’ao, I’ve got your best interests at heart. So does Commander Wang. If you turn your cache of weapons over to us, we’ll make you a battalion commander, and he’ll provide rifles and pay. That’s better than being a bandit.’ ‘Who’s a bandit? Who isn’t a bandit? Anyone who fights the Japanese is a national hero. Last year I knocked off three Japanese sentries and inherited three automatic rifles. You’re no bandit, but how many Japs have you killed? You haven’t taken a hair off a single Jap’s ass!’ Detachment Leader Leng sat down and lit a cigarette. Father took advantage of the lull to hand the wine jug up to Grandma, whose face changed as she took it from him. Glaring at Father, she filled the three cups. ‘Uncle Arhat’s blood is in this wine,’ she said. ‘If you’re honourable men you’ll drink it, then go out and destroy the Jap convoy. After that, chickens can go their own way, dogs can go theirs. Well water and river water don’t mix.’ She picked up her cup and drank the wine down noisily. Commander Yu held out his cup, threw back his head, and drained it. Detachment Leader Leng followed suit, but put his cup down half full. ‘Commander Yu,’ he said, ‘I’ve had all I can handle. So long!’ With her hand still on his revolver, Grandma asked him, ‘Are you going to fight?’ ‘Don’t beg!’ Commander Yu snarled. ‘I’ll fight, even if he doesn’t.’ ‘I’ll fight,’ Detachment Leader Leng said. Grandma let her hand drop, and Leng jammed his revolver back into its holster. The pale skin around his nose was dotted with dozens of pockmarks. A heavy cartridge belt hung from his belt, which sagged when he holstered his revolver. ‘Zhan’ao,’ Grandma said, ‘I’m entrusting Douguan to your care. Take him along the day after tomorrow.’ Commander Yu looked at my father and smiled. ‘Have you got the balls, foster-son?’ Father stared scornfully at the hard yellow teeth showing between Commander Yu’s parted lips. He didn’t say a word. Commander Yu picked up a wine cup and placed it on top of Father’s head, then told him to stand in the doorway. He whipped out his Browning pistol and walked over to the corner. Father watched Commander Yu take three long strides to the corner, three slow, measured steps. Grandma’s face turned ashen. The corners of Detachment Leader Leng’s mouth were curled in a contemptuous smile. When he reached the corner, Commander Yu whirled around. Father watched him raise his arm, as a dark-red cast came over his black eyes. The Browning spat out a puff of white smoke. An explosion erupted above Father’s head, and shards of shattered ceramic fell around him, one landing against his neck. He shrugged his shoulder, and it slid down into his pants. He didn’t utter a sound. The blood had drained from Grandma’s face. Detachment Leader Leng sat down hard on a stool. ‘Good shooting,’ he said after a moment. ‘Good boy!’ Commander Yu said proudly. The Browning pistol in Father’s hand seemed to weigh a ton. ‘I don’t have to show you,’ Commander Yu said. ‘You know how to shoot. Have Mute get his men ready.’ Gripping his pistol tightly, Father darted through the sorghum field, crossed the highway, and ran up to Mute, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground, honing his sabre knife with a shiny green stone. Some of his men were seated, others lying down. ‘Get your men ready,’ Father said to him. Mute looked at Father out of the corner of his eye, but kept honing his knife for another moment or so. Then he picked up a couple of sorghum leaves, wiped the stone residue from the blade, and plucked a stalk of grass to test its sharpness. It fell in two pieces the instant it touched the blade. ‘Get your men ready,’ Father repeated. Mute sheathed his knife and laid it on the ground beside him, his face creased in a savage grin. With one of his mammoth hands he signalled Father to come closer. ‘Uh! Uh!’ he grunted. Father shuffled forward and stopped a pace or so from Mute, who reached out, grabbed him by the sleeve, jerked him into his lap, and pinched his ear so hard that he grimaced. Father jammed his Browning pistol up into Mute’s rib cage. Mute grabbed Father’s nose and pinched it until tears came to his eyes. An eerie laugh burst from Mute’s mouth. The seated men laughed raucously. ‘A lot like Commander Yu, isn’t he?’ ‘Commander Yu’s seed.’ ‘Douguan, I miss your mom.’ ‘Douguan, I feel like nibbling those date-topped buns of hers.’ Father’s embarrassment quickly turned to rage. Raising his pistol, he aimed it at the man wishfully thinking of date-topped buns, and pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked, but no bullet emerged. The man, ashen-faced, jumped to his feet and wrenched the pistol away. Father, still enraged, threw himself on the man, clawing, kicking, biting. Mute stood up, grabbed Father by the scruff of his neck, and flicked him away. He flew through the air and crashed into a thicket of sorghum stalks. A quick somersault and he was on his feet, railing and swearing as he charged Mute, who merely grunted a couple of times. The steely look in his eyes froze Father in his tracks. Mute picked up the pistol and pulled back the bolt; a bullet fell into his hand. Holding it in his fingers, he looked at the notch in the casing from the firing pin, and made some unintelligible hand signs to Father. Then he stuck the pistol into Father’s belt and patted him on the shoulder. ‘What were you doing over there?’ Commander Yu asked. Father was embarrassed. ‘They. they said they wanted to sleep with Mom.’ ‘What did you say?’ Commander Yu asked sternly. Father wiped his eyes with his arm. ‘I shot him!’ ‘You shot somebody?’ ‘The gun misfired.’ Father handed Commander Yu the shiny dud. Commander Yu took it from him, examined it, and gave it a casual flick. It described a beautiful arc before plopping into the river. ‘Good boy!’ Commander Yu said. ‘But use your gun on the Japanese first. After you’ve finished them off, anybody who says he wants to sleep with your mom, you shoot him in the gut. Not in the head, and not in the chest. Remember, in the gut.’ Father lay on his belly alongside Commander Yu; the Fang brothers were on his other side. The cannon had been set up on the dike, aimed at the stone bridge, its barrel stuffed with cotton rags, a fuse sticking out behind. Fang Seven had placed a bundle of sorghum tinder next to him, some of which was already smouldering. A gourd filled with gunpowder and a tin of iron pellets lay beside Fang Six. Wang Wenyi was to Commander Yu’s left, curled up, holding his long-barrelled fowling piece in his hands. His wounded ear was stuck to the white bandage covering it. The sun was stake-high, its white core girded by a pink halo. The flowing water glittered. A flock of wild ducks flew over from the sorghum field, circled three times, then dived down to a grassy sandbar. A few landed on the surface of the river and began floating downstream, their bodies settling heavily in the water, their heads turning and darting constantly. Father was feeling warm and tingly. His clothes, dampened by the dew, were now dry. He pressed himself to the ground, but felt a pain in his chest, as from a sharp stone. When he rose up to see what it was, his head and upper torso were exposed above the dike. ‘Get down,’ Commander Yu ordered. Reluctantly, he did as he was told. Fang Six began to snore. Commander Yu picked up a clod of earth and tossed it in his face. Fang Six woke up bleary-eyed and yawned so heroically that two fine tears appeared in the corners of his eyes. ‘Are the Japs here?’ he asked loudly. ‘Fuck you!’ Commander Yu snarled. ‘No sleeping.’ The riverbanks were absolutely still; the broad highway lay lifeless in its bed of sorghum. The stone bridge spanning the river was strikingly beautiful. A boundless expanse of sorghum greeted the reddening sun, which rose ever higher, grew ever brighter. Wild ducks floated in the shallow water by the banks, noisily searching for food with their flat bills. Father studied their beautiful feathers and alert, intelligent eyes. Aiming his heavy Browning pistol at one of their smooth backs, he was about to pull the trigger when Commander Yu forced his hand down. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, you little turtle egg?’ Father was getting fidgety. The highway lay there like death itself. The sorghum had turned deep scarlet. ‘That bastard Leng wants to play games with me!’ Commander Yu spat out hatefully. The southern bank lay in silence; not a trace of the Leng detachment. Father knew it was Leng who had learned that the convoy would be passing his spot, and that he’d brought Commander Yu into the ambush only because he doubted his own ability to go it alone. Father was tense for a while, but gradually he relaxed, and his attention wandered back to the wild ducks. He thought about duck-hunting with Uncle Arhat, who had a fowling piece with a deep-red stock and a leather strap; it was now in the hands of Wang Wenyi. Tears welled up in his eyes, but not enough to spill out. Just like that day the year before. Under the warm rays of the sun, he felt a chill spread through his body. Uncle Arhat and the two mules had been taken away by the Japs, and Grandma had washed her bloody face in the wine vat until it reeked of alcohol and was beet-red. Her eyes were puffy; the front of her pale-blue cotton jacket was soaked in wine and blood. She stood stock-still beside the vat, staring down at her reflection. Father recalled how she had fallen to her knees and kowtowed three times to the vat, then stood up, scooped some wine with both hands

Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html Source of Rahan Comics: Philippe Ropers. https://vk.com/topic-203785966_47424128 Rahan. Episode One hundred and Nine. By Roger Lecureux, drawn by Andre Cheret. The Treasure of Rahan. The "Goraks" managed to surprise Rahan! But they have not killed him yet! Surprised in his sleep, by these young "Sabre-toothed Tigers", the Son of Crao knew that the fight would be terrible. He was preparing to lead it, when. Call back your "Goraks", Ognard! This hunter does not seem to have come as an enemy! Reluctantly, the one named Ognard gave a brief order to the felines. Who obediently returned to crouch at his feet. Welcome to our territory, brother, stranger! But. But would you not be Rahan, the son of Crao? I am Rahan, the son of Crao. Page Two. The echo of your exploits has reached us! They say you have invented a thousand wonderful things and know a thousand secrets! The "Waterside Clan" is happy to welcome you, brother! The welcome from this clan was indeed warm. Only the sorcerer Ognard did not share the enthusiasm of his people. Will you tell us about your discoveries, Rahan? Will you reveal your secrets? They say you are a genius who knows everything! Rahan is not a genius. He is just a hunter who knows how to observe things and take advantage of them. But how? How? Akoa, the chief's son, was eager to learn. How? Take the example of these rafts, that your clan knows how to build. Rahan at your age, did not yet know how to "Crawl on water" but one day. Carried away by a torrent, he survived by clinging to two trunks. Discovering that day that the trees were floating, the idea came to him. To assemble several of them to cross the "Waterways." Rahan had just discovered something that others had perhaps known for a long time! Page Three. They say you also invented a "Fish Trap"! Here again, Rahan only had the merit of knowing how to observe nature. The son of Crao told how, by chance while hunting, he had. Saw a salmon get itself caught in a bramble thorn. If that trap attracts fish, they will fall into Rahan's trap! And how, taking advantage of this observation, the idea came to him to carve solid and effective hooks! In front of the attentive clan Rahan evoked distant memories. One day, chance made Rahan discover a new weapon. He chased a "Beast-that-stings" that had long annoyed him. But the beast. Took refuge inside a long hollow reed. To chase it away Rahan had cut the reed and instinctively blown into it. The beast had been thrown far away. Page Four. Since the "Wind of the cheeks" could throw the "Stinging Beast" far, it could probably throw something else! Rahan tried with a long thorn. The son of Crao revealed how he had perhaps, that day, invented or reinvented this weapon that we would call a blowgun! Young Akoa was filled with admiration. Is it not said that you can approach your enemies without being seen by them? Chance again, little man! It was while observing the “beast-that-changes-its-color” that Rahan had the idea one day. To cover yourself with foliage to approach your opponents! You must have crossed extraordinary territories. The strangest thing Rahan has ever known. Is the "White-skinned-country." The son of Crao spoke at length about this country covered in snow and ice. Rahan understands. When it is cold, the great lake protects itself with a "White Skin!" This was the country, from which he almost did not return. Page Five. And where, in spite of himself, he had been led to discover. The sled! You will have to return Rahan's property! You have seen so many things! You know so many things! That is a real treasure Rahan has in his head! Rahan will deliver it to you tomorrow, brothers! Later, as the last fire went out. It is true that Rahan has a treasure in his head! This treasure must go to Ognard. And to him alone! Ognard the sorcerer, shortly after, slipped into the hut that had been offered to the son of Crao. The treasure in your head must pass into Ognard's. Ognard wants to learn everything you have learned! He wants to know everything you know! The bamboo needle penetrated Rahan's flesh. But the treacherous Ognard knew that this sting was enough to paralyze him until dawn! You are at the mercy of Ognard, Rahan! You will have to reveal your treasure to him! Page Six. Oh! What, What! Young Akoa, who had been amazed by the tales of the "Hunter with the Fire-Hair" had been unable to sleep. He was the only one to see the raft drift away! The Son of Crao woke from his lethargic sleep at dawn. The "Goraks" were watching over the entrance to the cave where Ogrard had led him. Do not expect to escape, Rahan! I want you to tell me all your secrets! All! All! The tip of the ivory knife prodded the captive's torso. Why torment Rahan, he is ready to teach everything he knows to his brothers and. No, I want your "Treasure" for myself alone! Tell me about your finds and your discoveries! Speak! Speak! And do not expect anyone to help you, Rahan! No one knows where we are! Ognard-the-sorcerer was mistaken, Akoa had followed him to this cave. But the child Did not dare to show himself. The clan may be looking for Rahan. Rahan must buy time! Drop that knife, Ognard. Rahan will tell you what he remembers. Page Seven. The son of Crao conjured up whatever came to his mind. He told how, one day discovering the flexibility of bamboo. He had come up with a new way to avoid a rhinoceros' charge. To get over obstacles and. To escape from his enemies. Ha-ha-ha! This is not how you will escape Ognard! Come on. Speak again! Tell me! Tell me! Sometimes hilarious, sometimes furious, the sorcerer was still prodding the flesh of his captive. Rahan, sorting through his memories, spoke of his "Finds." He spoke of the day when, accidentally caught in a vine. He had, while observing this one beast. Discovered the "Noose” and. Ra-ha-ha! Rahan had invented a new trap! Page Eight. Again! Again! Do not hide anything from me about the "Treasure" you have in your head! Speak! Speak! Ognard, at the height of excitement, was still tormenting him. And Rahan, wielding his memory, drew from it other memories. He described how one day he had accidentally pierced a skin that he wanted to retrieve from the mud. He had taken advantage of this banal incident, substituting a thin thorn for his knife, he had that day "invented" the needle. Hidden at the entrance of the cave, young Akoa did not miss any of these revelations. The "Goraks" who knew the child, had not flinched. Why is Ognard making Rahan suffer? Akoa should have warned the clan! The son of Crao continued to relate his adventures. Having avoided a fatal fall thanks to a forked branch. Ra-ha-ha! The idea came to him to use a similar branch to slide down a vine and escape his pursuers. Page Nine. He recounted how, another time, he had imagined a mobile scaffolding to escape from a trap into which he had been thrown. As soon as Rahan fell silent the pressure of the ivory knife grew stronger. Continue! I want to know everything about your discoveries, your inventions! Talk! Talk! Ognard is a brute! How could Akoa help Rahan? Fearing the sorcerer, Akoa remained hidden in the shadows. Rahan now told the extraordinary story of a lakeside village whose footbridge was set on fire every time a volcano erupted. Inspired by the rotating motion of his knife. He had the idea of a swing bridge that the fishermen could, at will, remove from the incandescent lava! Page Ten. Again! Again! Tell me about other finds! Quickly! Quickly! If not. Argh! The pain was so sharp this time. What. That is enough Ognard! Ra-ha-ha! Argh! The sorcerer, thrown to the ground, had let the ivory knife slip. But Rahan could not seize it. Suddenly. Akoa! Overcoming his fears, the child rushed into the cave, and rushed towards the weapon. Quickly! Cut this vine, Akoa! Quickly! But it was already too late. Ognard had just shouted an order. His "Goraks" were rushing towards the captive! Page Eleven. The Treasure of Rahan. The child had barely cut the vine when the "Goraks" pounced on the freed captive! Catch Rahan! Catch! Ah! If you were not the son of Horgg, I would kill you on the spot, Akoa! Rahan had seized the knife and was facing the wild beasts. One of them rolled at his feet, his throat slit. A second was to suffer the same fate when. Page Twelve. I will not let my “Goraks” be slaughtered one by one, Rahan! No Ognard, No! Young Akoa clung desperately to the sorcerer. But he did not have the strength to unbalance him. Argh! The son of Crao collapsed on the body of the feline he had just disemboweled. When he came to, he was tied up again. This escape attempt had failed, but the presence of Akoa gave him hope. The "Waterside Clan" will search for Akoa and save Rahan. Rahan must buy time. I want to know all. I want to know all your discoveries, all your inventions! Speak! Speak! The death of two of his wild beasts had plunged the sorcerer into a mad rage. A wave of memories, fortunately, came back to Rahan's mind. Page thirteen. He recalled how some thorny branches gave him the idea one day. The bamboo, unstuck, had suddenly straightened up and pinned Rahan to the trunk of a tree. To build the most effective, the most formidable of traps. He dove between the two trunks of the trap. That was when the hunters released the branches. Young Akoa could have fled the cave but the "Treasure" that Rahan delivered was too wonderful and the infant remained there listening to the captive's revelations. Who was now telling how, after observing dead leaves drifting in the wind. He had imagined stretching a skin over his raft. Perhaps uncovering the first sail. Then the son of Crao recalled this adventure, where he had noticed that the rain obediently followed the furrow traced by his knife. Page Fourteen. He had come to the aid of the "Clay Cliff Clan" who had welcomed him, and he had advised them to dig a ditch. To divert the course of a nearby river and thus defend themselves against the attacks of a belligerent tribe called, "Those-from-below." Again! Speak again! I want to learn all your secrets, all your tricks! Ognard-the-witch seemed on the verge of madness and gave no respite to the son of the fierce ages! Rahan does not remember anymore! You must! Otherwise! His memory betrayed Rahan but the vision of the dead Goraks brought back a memory. He described the scene where, his bow having hit a stump, he had been forced to release his arrow in a curious manner. Approach “Gorak”! Approach! And how, from this incident, he had come up with the idea of a new weapon, quite. Powerful enough to kill the most monstrous of Goraks! Page Fifteen. Again! Speak again! Do not be silent! I want to know all your "Treasure"! Speak! The sorcerer was more and more excited. Tears of emotion were welling up in Akoa's eyes. Which reminded Rahan of another memory. The one with the "Flying Tears"! He spoke of this strange ash that turned into foam, mixed with water. And which, in turn, gave birth to enormous and light "tears"! This was his evocation of his discovery of the bubbles of pure soapstone. This time it was a total, absolute "memory lapse". Rahan does not remember anymore. You are lying! Your head is still full of things you want to hide from me! This memory lapse was real. But the mad sorcerer believed it was a deception. Speak again! Speak, or I will send you to the "shadow-territory"! You are stupid, Ognard! If you steal Rahan's life, he will not be able to tell you any more secrets! Uh! You are right. But I have another idea! A cruel glint passed through the sorcerer’s eyes. Page Sixteen. Who suddenly seized the young Akoa! You seem to think a lot of this little man, Rahan! So, if you want him to live. Speak! Speak immediately! Decide quickly or else. The son of Crao shuddered. No memory came back to him and he knew that Ognard, on the verge of madness, was going to carry out his threat! The son of the fierce apes searched his memory for souvenirs. But in vain! Since you insist on hiding your secrets from me. Akoa will die before your eyes! The mad sorcerer was about to strike the child when suddenly! Wait! Rahan remembers! He will speak. Ha-ha-ha! I knew your memory lapse was just a deception! No, Rahan had not lied. But as he plumbed the depths of the past, he finally stirred up a new wave of memories. That would save Akoa for a moment. He spoke. He spoke of this perilous adventure during which. Page Seventeen. Discovering that a rock could serve as a counterweight. He had imagined, for his brothers of the cliff. A quick way to access their territory. As he dwelt on this discovery of the "Platform Elevator" to save time. Ognard grew irritated. I have understood enough! Reveal something else to me! Quickly! Quickly! Rahan will never satisfy this madman! Ah! If Akoa had been able to escape and alert his people. This thought brought another memory. He narrated this "Invention" which had allowed him, once. To send smoke messages. Some clouds will say that things are "Going well." Many clouds will say they are going badly. It will be enough to agree on a "Language"! Page Eighteen. Again! Speak Again! Reveal all your treasure to me! Otherwise. Speak. "Mother of mothers," Have pity on us Ognard! The mother of mothers! Akoa's plea reminded Rahan of an event from long ago. He described how, following a trivial fall. He had the idea of a carpet of trunks to transport a gigantic rock representing the mother of mothers. As soon as she was no longer supported by a trunk, it was replaced in front of her. And what would have required days of effort now required only an instant! Each revelation drew cries of joy from the sorcerer. Ha! Ognard will now be able to move the heaviest rocks! Again, Rahan! Speak! Speak Rahan could speak without being tied up Ognard! Do not count on it, Rahan! A hunter as cunning as you could escape me! You are at my mercy and you will stay! Come on. I am listening! Ognard was still goading the son of Crao, for whom it was becoming increasingly difficult to remember his "Finds." Page Nineteen. The one about the aqueduct came back to him and he related how he observed rain flowing through a bamboo split in two. Had given him the idea of a "Hollow Passage," to capture and bring water from a spring over a river infested with piranhas. And then it was the "Memory Hole" again. Do not start cheating again, Rahan! You must have "invented" something else! Weapons perhaps? Uh! Yes! I remember! The sorcerer's question pointed Rahan into the labyrinth of his memories. He told how a stone had shattered the bamboo of his spear. He immediately took advantage of this unexpected incident and came up with a three-pointed arrow, infinitely more effective for hunting birds. A three-pointed arrow!? Yes. And Rahan discovered yet another weapon one day. The number "Three" had just reminded Rahan of another "Find." Having thrown his fish on a bank. Page Twenty. The vines holding them up had become inextricably tangled. In a branch. Of this chance was born "The Three-Armed Weapon." Which later allowed him to escape from a deep trap. And then? Tell us! Uh. Uh, Rahan does not know anymore. He does not remember anymore. His captive, knowing new "Memory Trouble", caused Ognard-the-sorcerer to become vociferous. Continue! I want to know everything about your treasure! Everything! Everything! The madman screamed so loudly that the echoes shook the cavern. The vault shook, from which stones suddenly fell. Up there! Up there! Rahan is going to die! What mortal danger awaits Rahan? We will find out next week when we read the rest of "Rahan's Treasure"! Page Twenty-One. Unbeknownst to his clan, the sorcerer Ognard had captured Rahan to force him to reveal his "Treasure." Treasure which is none other than the astonishing knowledge acquired by the son of Crao during his adventurous life. Young Akoa tried to free the fire-haired hunter, but in vain. Just above the child and the two men, a huge rock teetered on the edge of an overhang. Free Rahan, Ognard! Quickly! Quickly! As Rahan talked about all his inventions and discoveries one by one, a rock broke away from the vault of the cavern and fell straight on him! Is this the end? A new hail of stones fell. The sorcerer, terrified, took refuge in a shadowy corner. And Akoa could be of no help to Rahan. Besides, it was too late! Hit by a stone, the rock had just fallen straight on the son of Crao! Rahan is going to join the "Territory of the Shadows”! Page Twenty-Two. Rahan, Terrified, saw the rock coming towards him. Nothing could save him! Nothing at all? Yes! The huge rock block, violently hitting the stalagmite, was miraculously deflected! Vrang! The good genies are with you, Rahan! And with me too, since you will be able to continue to reveal to me, your "Treasure"! This violent shock reminded the son of Crao of another shock. He told how he was carried away by the waves, from the terrible blow of a tree. And later, it gave him the idea of using a tree trunk to knock down a rampart! But after this evocation of the ram his memory failed him again. Page Twenty-Three. And that was when. Oh! The top of the stalagmite had moved imperceptibly! Cracked by the shock, this stalagmite could now collapse at the slightest pull! Rahan could free himself. But his hands would still be tied! And Ognard would kill Akoa! Rahan must wait for an opportunity! The child, in fact, remained at the mercy of the mad sorcerer. What are you waiting for to speak, Rahan? That I hit Akoa? In the distance, the sound of birdsong greeted the sunset. The son of Crao remembered a curious discovery. He narrated how, from a reed pierced by insects. The "Beast-who-stings" will find refuge elsewhere! Before sliding a long thorn into his blowpipe. He crawled towards the birds. When he was within range Rahan blew and. Page Twenty-Four. Thanks to the "Wind-of-the-Joys", a song similar to that of birds had sprung forth! Despite the threat that weighed on him, the young Akoa listened with wonder. The "Goraks" were still watching at the entrance to the cavern that was quickly invaded by darkness. Do not expect to take advantage of the night to escape, Rahan! And if you do not reveal other discoveries to me immediately. It is death for Akoa! Ognard will eventually fall asleep! Rahan must gain time! But how? Oh! As the sorcerer lit a fire, the flame brought back a memory to Rahan. He told how, having accidentally collected some fat from the hollow of a "Wood Fruit." He had discovered that a piece of lighted vine, immersed in the "Juice of the white flesh," could burn all night without being consumed! Page Twenty-Five. This invention of the "Oil Lamp" left Ognard skeptical. Do you not trust anyone to save your life and Akoa's? Rahan never lies, Ognard! But if you think he is lying, why keep tormenting him! Hum, That's right, so talk again! I want to know all your secrets before daybreak! The son of Crao was always up against the rampart of time and oblivion. Rahan does not remember anymore, Ognard. His memories will perhaps come back tomorrow. No! Right now! And if you do not want to share your treasure with me, I. Wait! The word "Share," like a spark, had just awakened a distant memory. Inspired by a practical game by the children of the blue mountain. He had invented a "Balance" allowing the fair sharing of meat between hunters. Page Twenty-Six. A "Grease Light" and a “meat scale”! Ha-ha-ha! When Ognard reveals all these secrets he will be considered the greatest of all sorcerers! Again Rahan! Quick! Quick! Do not let your memory fly away! Oh! Fly away! This word also triggered a memory. He narrated this adventure on the great river, of a prisoner on an islet, and having owed his salvation to a domestic pterodactyl. He had used a large skin imitating the wings of the bird to fly across a formidable cataract. Clinging to the vines, he saw the chasms of water and the terrifying whirlpools rising towards him. The son of Crao was falling. Falling. But he was falling slowly! He was flying over the falls. Then there was another memory lapse. The angry sorcerer gave an order to his Goraks. Page Twenty-Seven. They will not slit your throat. Since I need you alive! But they know how to make you confess. What else do you want to hide from me? Before the horrified eyes of the young Akoa, the wild beasts faced the captive. And with quick swipes of their claws, they began to lacerate his legs! The "Goraks", obeying the sorcerer’s orders, only grazed the captive's flesh. But the torture was no less unbearable. Arg! Call back your "Goraks" Ognard! Rahan will speak! Ha-ha-ha! I knew you still had "Finds" to reveal to me! Speak! Speak! Ognard pushed his wild beasts aside. It is not about "finds" that Rahan will speak. But about unknown things, things that have remained mysterious to him. Page Twenty-Eight. To save time, the son of Crao mentioned discoveries that he had never explained. He spoke of this strange spear he had found one day. A magic spear. A spear that was neither of wood nor of stone, with which he had faced and killed a monstrous creature. Ra-ha-ha! For this spear, made of an unknown material, had the magical power to attract the "Fire of Heaven"! The memory of this heavy and cold matter, which he did not know would be called "Iron." Led to another. Items like this spear can be born from "Burning Stones"! These strange stones. Which, when molten, transform into "Fire Paste" which when cooling. Page Twenty-Nine. It in turn transformed into objects, shaped like the footprints it had sunk into! Objects that are neither wood, nor stone, nor bone! Would you mock me to prolong your life! No Ognard! Fire is capable of great miracles! One day, Rahan met a clan who offered water stones to their god. How curious!? Where do these marvelous stones come from, as transparent as spring water? Rahan was unaware. But he learned that they were born from the sand of the beach, under the fire of a brazier burning for moons and moons! Burning stones! Water stones! Continue Rahan! Reveal to me all your "Treasure"! Quickly! Quickly! Page Thirty. Take Rahan! Otherwise! Argh! The mad sorcerer went from the captive to the child, goading each one with the knife. Rahan can only act if Akoa could escape this madman! The son of Crao still felt the slight vibrations of the stalagmite cracked by the falling rock, but. A new adventure came back to him. The one where, one day, he recovered his ivory knife from a crack. And it was covered in a thick greenish powder. They had covered their bodies with this mysterious powder. He had been able to discover. The secret of the night spirits, a peaceful clan who used light powder to protect themselves from formidable enemies. Despite the sorcerer's threats, young Akoa listened with wonder to Rahan's revelations. Again, Rahan! Speak! Speak! Betrayed by his memory, will Rahan win a new reprieve? Will he save this child threatened by the madman? We will learn it in the next and last section: The heir of the treasure. Page Thirty-One. The treasure of Rahan. Summary: Unbeknownst to his clan, the sorcerer Ognard tortured Rahan to force him to reveal his "Treasure". Which is none other than the astonishing knowledge acquired by the son of Crao during his adventurous life. Young Akoa tries to deliver Rahan, but in vain. To save the child that the cruel Ognard threatens to kill, Rahan reveals one by one all his discoveries, all his inventions, but betrayed by his memory, it becomes more and more difficult for him to satisfy the mad sorcerer. Wait! Rahan also discovered the "Powder-that-thunders"! The phosphorus powder he had just mentioned reminded the son of Crao of this other memory. He spoke of those caves, where no one could enter with a torch. Baom! Without being instantly pulverized by a fantastic explosion. From these caves he had managed to bring back the three powders. The black, the yellow, and the white. Ignited in isolation these powders had no effect. Page Thirty-Two. But, mixed together. They had given Rahan the secret. Boom! Of a terrifying weapon! The explosion was so strong this time that, although he moved aside, he was thrown to the ground by the blast! This mention of "Explosives" left the sorcerer speechless. He relaxed his vigilance for a moment and. Run away Akoa! Run away! Do not worry about Rahan! Run away! As the child finally leapt towards the exit of the cave, Rahan shook the stalagmite, the upper part of which collapsed. Ra-ha-ha! But the son of Crao was only partly freed. His hands remained restrained and Ognard, furious, rushed towards him! And the "Goraks" were only waiting for an order from the mad sorcerer to pounce! I will finish you off, Rahan! Page Thirty-three. The "Goraks" had not opposed the escape of the child that they were accustomed to seeing. Oh! Ognard is going to kill Rahan! But this one was powerless. And saw the son of Crao dive to dodge a terrible spear blow. His head hit a rock. Stunned by the shock, he rolled to the ground. Argh! With his hands tied, he found himself once again at the mercy of the mad sorcerer. Ha-ha-ha! You are going to finish revealing your "Treasure" to me Rahan! Speak! Speak! Cruelly goaded by the ivory knife. He had to tell, in bulk, everything that came to mind. He spoke of those curious trees whose thick sap was transformed. In hot spring water, into a soft, elastic paste. Page Thirty-Four. He told how "This-thing-that-stretches," gave him the idea for a new weapon. After some painful trials. Slap! Argh! He had managed to improve this weapon using a wooden fork, thus inventing a sort of small bow for throwing stones! Troc! Yes, Ogrard. The "Thing-that-stretches" can relax. Like this! Argh! Rahan's angry reaction was more instinctive than effective. The "Goraks", in fact, were already approaching, growling. And Ognard began to stimulate him with his "Lance" more cruelly than ever! Ai! The point of the knife harassing him reminded him of the spines of the hedgehog he had observed one day and how, imitating "The ball-beast-that-stings," he. Wait. Wait. A memory comes back to Rahan! Page Thirty-Five. He had imagined a cage of sharp bamboos to explore a cave populated with "Long Manes"! And then, once again, the son of Crao had a "Memory lapse." You say you do not remember, but you are lying! You are lying! You are lying! Speak Again! Tell me your other discoveries! Quickly! Ognard no longer controls his thoughts or his actions! If Akoa does not return with the clan, Rahan is lost! The son of Crao was unaware that the child had remained hidden at the entrance to the cave! He too did not want to lose any of Rahan's marvelous secrets! A memory had just come back to him, which related how. Thanks to a wild boar's bladder, he had. Been able to breathe in the depths of the great river. Page Thirty-Six. And then? I want to know everything! Do not hide anything from me about your "Treasure"! The mad sorcerer was about to strike! But a gust of wind rushing into the cavern came to the aid of the son of Crao. Who remembered how, after having faced a similar wind that was going to carry away a precious fur. He had been led to invent "A bird-of-skin," allowing him to find his way in the desert of the "White-skinned-country." Ha-ha-ha! So you also know how to use the wind!? The "Breath-of-Heaven" can be an ally for "Those-Who-Walk-Upright"! An ally!? Speak! Speak! The mad sorcerer’s "Spear" weighed on Rahan's chest, to whom the thought of the "Wind" brought a new wave of memories. Page Thirty-Seven. Observing the swirling fall of fruits from certain trees, of the sycamore tree. He had reconstructed an object inspired by the shape of these fruits. An object that turned according to the whims of the "Breath of Heaven." Inspired by this discovery, he later imagined a machine to capture the wind, using its force to draw water from a chasm! The son of Crao searched the depths of his memory. The memories no longer flowed from it! Akoa and the clan have abandoned Rahan! Ognard will kill him! And Rahan felt that at the slightest movement of rebellion against the mad sorcerer, he would fall prey to the two "Goraks" on the lookout. Young Akoa, his heart beating, had not missed a word of these revelations. It is true that Rahan has a wonderful "Treasure" in his head! But. Why does he keep quiet? Page Thirty-Eight. The mad sorcerer, in fact, seemed less excited, but even more cruel. If you had other secrets, you could prolong your life! So, if you keep quiet. That is because you have given me all your "Treasure"! And I do not need you anymore! Ognard brandished his spear and Rahan knew he would be killed by his own knife! Ognard the Sorcerer's spear was about to fall when. No! Wait! Rahan did not tell you everything. The instinct of preservation stimulated Rahan's memory. Other memories came back to him. He told how, having observed the arrangement of the scales of the fish. He had, imitating this arrangement, built covers of slate plates that no waterfall could penetrate. Thus creating a source that had fed a clan. Pages Thirty-Nine. But the sorcerer, overcome by his madness, no longer believed him! Ha-ha-ha! You are lying! You are imagining anything to deceive me! Wait Ognard! Wait! Rahan can teach you a thousand more things you do not know! He will explain to you how, with a simple vine, a hunter can prevent wild animals from surprising him while he sleeps! He will reveal to you how, always attaching himself with a line. You can tame a fiery "Four-Legs," Enough! Enough lies! You are going to die! Oh! Rahan had just caught a glimpse of Akoa, who. Page Forty. Slipped surreptitiously into the cave. He had to win a few more seconds Just a few seconds! Wait Ognard. Rahan will teach you. How to grill meat effortlessly, using only the river current! He will tell you how, by observing the fish, he imagined the "Tail" to steer his raft. He. A hundred other memories now assailed Crao's son. But the mad sorcerer would not listen anymore! Enough! Enough! You will tell these lies to the "Shadows"! Ognard did not have time to throw his spear. You won't kill Rahan! Oh! His cry of amazement continued into a long rattle. Argh! He had impaled himself on the weapon, with the ivory knife! Page Forty-One. Attention, Rahan! The "Goraks," who were no longer held back by the sorcerer's orders, rushed forward furiously, abandoning the child. They were going to attack the one against whom they had been so long excited. And. Rahan, his hands tied, could only. Jump from one rock to another to avoid their fearsome claws. But suddenly! Rahan! Rahan! Akoa could do nothing for the son of Crao, who had just slipped. And this one, half-dazed, glimpsed the tawny spots of felines above him, all claws out! Ready to bite. But the "Goraks" suddenly melted away, struck down by a volley of arrows! We arrived in time, “Hair of Fire!” The chief of the water's edge clan and his people burst into the cave. Father! Father! We have been looking for you, Ognard and Rahan since yesterday! What happened, Akoa? Page Forty-Two. A terrible thing, Father! Ognard kidnapped Rahan to tear out the treasure he had in his head! Ognard tormented Rahan all day and all night! Akoa related everything he had seen. Ognard the perfidious has betrayed the law of hospitality of our clan! It is good that he has joined the "Territory-of-shadows"! Ognard did not have to torture Rahan. Because Rahan never hides anything he knows from his brothers! But this rogue wanted your "Treasure" for himself alone, no doubt to better dominate the clan! And now He has taken this wonderful "Treasure" with him. Into the realm of shadows! No, father! I did not understand everything, but I heard everything. All the wonderful things that Rahan revealed to Ognard will remain forever engraved in my memory! I will teach them to the whole clan! These are the words Rahan loves to hear, Akoa! But Rahan still has many things to teach you! In the days that followed, in fact, he answered the child's thousand questions. He revealed many other discoveries to him. And so, in those fierce times, a little man inherited the "Treasure" of Rahan, the son of Crao.

Mo Yan: Storytellers. Nobel Lecture December 7, 2012. Distinguished members of the Swedish Academy, Ladies and Gentlemen: Through the mediums of television and the Internet, I imagine that everyone here has at least a nodding acquaintance with far-off Northeast Gaomi Township. You may have seen my ninety-year-old father, as well as my brothers, my sister, my wife and my daughter, even my granddaughter, now a year and four months old. But the person who is most on my mind at this moment, my mother, is someone you will never see. Many people have shared in the honor of winning this prize, everyone but her. My mother was born in 1922 and died in 1994. We buried her in a peach orchard east of the village. Last year we were forced to move her grave farther away from the village in order to make room for a proposed rail line. When we dug up the grave, we saw that the coffin had rotted away and that her body had merged with the damp earth around it. So we dug up some of that soil, a symbolic act, and took it to the new gravesite. That was when I grasped the knowledge that my mother had become part of the earth, and that when I spoke to mother earth, I was really speaking to my mother. I was my mother’s youngest child. My earliest memory was of taking our only vacuum bottle to the public canteen for drinking water. Weakened by hunger, I dropped the bottle and broke it. Scared witless, I hid all that day in a haystack. Toward evening, I heard my mother calling my childhood name, so I crawled out of my hiding place, prepared to receive a beating or a scolding. But Mother didn’t hit me, didn’t even scold me. She just rubbed my head and heaved a sigh. My most painful memory involved going out in the collective’s field with Mother to glean ears of wheat. The gleaners scattered when they spotted the watchman. But Mother, who had bound feet, could not run, she was caught and slapped so hard by the watchman, a hulk of a man, that she fell to the ground. The watchman confiscated the wheat we’d gleaned and walked off whistling. As she sat on the ground, her lip bleeding, Mother wore a look of hopelessness I’ll never forget. Years later, when I encountered the watchman, now a gray-haired old man, in the marketplace, Mother had to stop me from going up to avenge her. “Son,” she said evenly, “the man who hit me and this man are not the same person.” My clearest memory is of a Moon Festival day, at noontime, one of those rare occasions when we ate jiaozi at home, one bowl apiece. An aging beggar came to our door while we were at the table, and when I tried to send him away with half a bowlful of dried sweet potatoes, he reacted angrily: “I’m an old man,” he said. “You people are eating jiaozi, but want to feed me sweet potatoes. How heartless can you be?” I reacted just as angrily: “We’re lucky if we eat jiaozi a couple of times a year, one small bowlful apiece, barely enough to get a taste! You should be thankful we’re giving you sweet potatoes, and if you don’t want them, you can get the hell out of here!” After reprimanding me, Mother dumped her half-bowlful of jiaozi into the old man’s bowl. My most remorseful memory involves helping Mother sell cabbages at market, and me overcharging an old villager one jiao, intentionally or not, I can’t recall, before heading off to school. When I came home that afternoon, I saw that Mother was crying, something she rarely did. Instead of scolding me, she merely said softly, “Son, you embarrassed your mother today.” Mother contracted a serious lung disease when I was still in my teens. Hunger, disease, and too much work made things extremely hard on our family. The road ahead looked especially bleak, and I had a bad feeling about the future, worried that Mother might take her own life. Every day, the first thing I did when I walked in the door after a day of hard labor was call out for Mother. Hearing her voice was like giving my heart a new lease on life. But not hearing her threw me into a panic. I’d go looking for her in the side building and in the mill. One day, after searching everywhere and not finding her, I sat down in the yard and cried like a baby. That is how she found me when she walked into the yard carrying a bundle of firewood on her back. She was very unhappy with me, but I could not tell her what I was afraid of. She knew anyway. “Son,” she said, “don’t worry, there may be no joy in my life, but I won’t leave you till the God of the Underworld calls me.” I was born ugly. Villagers often laughed in my face, and school bullies sometimes beat me up because of it. I’d run home crying, where my mother would say, “You’re not ugly, son. You’ve got a nose and two eyes, and there’s nothing wrong with your arms and legs, so how could you be ugly? If you have a good heart and always do the right thing, what is considered ugly becomes beautiful.” Later on, when I moved to the city, there were educated people who laughed at me behind my back, some even to my face, but when I recalled what Mother had said, I just calmly offered my apologies. My illiterate mother held people who could read in high regard. We were so poor we often did not know where our next meal was coming from, yet she never denied my request to buy a book or something to write with. By nature hard-working, she had no use for lazy children, yet I could skip my chores as long as I had my nose in a book. A storyteller once came to the marketplace, and I sneaked off to listen to him. She was unhappy with me for forgetting my chores. But that night, while she was stitching padded clothes for us under the weak light of a kerosene lamp, I couldn’t keep from retelling stories I’d heard that day. She listened impatiently at first, since in her eyes professional storytellers were smooth-talking men in a dubious profession. Nothing good ever came out of their mouths. But slowly she was dragged into my retold stories, and from that day on, she never gave me chores on market day, unspoken permission to go to the marketplace and listen to new stories. As repayment for Mother’s kindness and a way to demonstrate my memory, I’d retell the stories for her in vivid detail. It did not take long to find retelling someone else’s stories unsatisfying, so I began embellishing my narration. I’d say things I knew would please Mother, even changed the ending once in a while. And she wasn’t the only member of my audience, which later included my older sisters, my aunts, even my maternal grandmother. Sometimes, after my mother had listened to one of my stories, she’d ask in a care-laden voice, almost as if to herself: “What will you be like when you grow up, son? Might you wind up prattling for a living one day?” I knew why she was worried. Talkative kids are not well thought of in our village, for they can bring trouble to themselves and to their families. There is a bit of a young me in the talkative boy who falls afoul of villagers in my story “Bulls.” Mother habitually cautioned me not to talk so much, wanting me to be a taciturn, smooth, and steady youngster. Instead I was possessed of a dangerous combination, remarkable speaking skills and the powerful desire that went with them. My ability to tell stories brought her joy, but that created a dilemma for her. A popular saying goes, “It is easier to change the course of a river than a person’s nature.” Despite my parents’ tireless guidance, my natural desire to talk never went away, and that is what makes my name, Mo Yan, or “don’t speak”, an ironic expression of self-mockery. After dropping out of elementary school, I was too small for heavy labor, so I became a cattle and sheep-herder on a nearby grassy riverbank. The sight of my former schoolmates playing in the schoolyard when I drove my animals past the gate always saddened me and made me aware of how tough it is for anyone, even a child, to leave the group. I turned the animals loose on the riverbank to graze beneath a sky as blue as the ocean and grass-carpeted land as far as the eye could see, not another person in sight, no human sounds, nothing but bird calls above me. I was all by myself and terribly lonely, my heart felt empty. Sometimes I lay in the grass and watched clouds float lazily by, which gave rise to all sorts of fanciful images. That part of the country is known for its tales of foxes in the form of beautiful young women, and I would fantasize a fox-turned-beautiful girl coming to tend animals with me. She never did come. Once, however, a fiery red fox bounded out of the brush in front of me, scaring my legs right out from under me. I was still sitting there trembling long after the fox had vanished. Sometimes I’d crouch down beside the cows and gaze into their deep blue eyes, eyes that captured my reflection. At times I’d have a dialogue with birds in the sky, mimicking their cries, while at other times I’d divulge my hopes and desires to a tree. But the birds ignored me, and so did the trees. Years later, after I’d become a novelist, I wrote some of those fantasies into my novels and stories. People frequently bombard me with compliments on my vivid imagination, and lovers of literature often ask me to divulge my secret to developing a rich imagination. My only response is a wan smile. Our Taoist master Laozi said it best: “Fortune depends on misfortune. Misfortune is hidden in fortune.” I left school as a child, often went hungry, was constantly lonely, and had no books to read. But for those reasons, like the writer of a previous generation, Shen Congwen, I had an early start on reading the great book of life. My experience of going to the marketplace to listen to a storyteller was but one page of that book. After leaving school, I was thrown uncomfortably into the world of adults, where I embarked on the long journey of learning through listening. Two hundred years ago, one of the great storytellers of all time, Pu Songling, lived near where I grew up, and where many people, me included, carried on the tradition he had perfected. Wherever I happened to be, working the fields with the collective, in production team cowsheds or stables, on my grandparents’ heated kang, even on oxcarts bouncing and swaying down the road, my ears filled with tales of the supernatural, historical romances, and strange and captivating stories, all tied to the natural environment and clan histories, and all of which created a powerful reality in my mind. Even in my wildest dreams, I could not have envisioned a day when all this would be the stuff of my own fiction, for I was just a boy who loved stories, who was infatuated with the tales people around me were telling. Back then I was, without a doubt, a theist, believing that all living creatures were endowed with souls. I’d stop and pay my respects to a towering old tree, if I saw a bird, I was sure it could become human any time it wanted, and I suspected every stranger I met of being a transformed beast. At night, terrible fears accompanied me on my way home after my work points were tallied, so I’d sing at the top of my lungs as I ran to build up a bit of courage. My voice, which was changing at the time, produced scratchy, squeaky songs that grated on the ears of any villager who heard me. I spent my first twenty-one years in that village, never traveling farther from home than to Qingdao, by train, where I nearly got lost amid the giant stacks of wood in a lumber mill. When my mother asked me what I’d seen in Qingdao, I reported sadly that all I’d seen were stacks of lumber. But that trip to Qingdao planted in me a powerful desire to leave my village and see the world. In February 1976 I was recruited into the army and walked out of the Northeast Gaomi Township village I both loved and hated, entering a critical phase of my life, carrying in my backpack the four-volume Brief History of China my mother had bought by selling her wedding jewelry. Thus began the most important period of my life. I must admit that were it not for the thirty-odd years of tremendous development and progress in Chinese society, and the subsequent national reform and opening of her doors to the outside, I would not be a writer today. In the midst of mind-numbing military life, I welcomed the ideological emancipation and literary fervor of the 1980s, and evolved from a boy who listened to stories and passed them on by word of mouth into someone who experimented with writing them down. It was a rocky road at first, a time when I had not yet discovered how rich a source of literary material my two decades of village life could be. I thought that literature was all about good people doing good things, stories of heroic deeds and model citizens, so that the few pieces of mine that were published had little literary value. In the fall of 1984 I was accepted into the Literature Department of the PLA Art Academy, where, under the guidance of my revered mentor, the renowned writer Xu Huaizhong, I wrote a series of stories and novellas, including: “Autumn Floods,” “Dry River,” “The Transparent Carrot,” and “Red Sorghum.” Northeast Gaomi Township made its first appearance in “Autumn Floods,” and from that moment on, like a wandering peasant who finds his own piece of land, this literary vagabond found a place he could call his own. I must say that in the course of creating my literary domain, Northeast Gaomi Township, I was greatly inspired by the American novelist William Faulkner and the Columbian Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I had not read either of them extensively, but was encouraged by the bold, unrestrained way they created new territory in writing, and learned from them that a writer must have a place that belongs to him alone. Humility and compromise are ideal in one’s daily life, but in literary creation, supreme self-confidence and the need to follow one’s own instincts are essential. For two years I followed in the footsteps of these two masters before realizing that I had to escape their influence, this is how I characterized that decision in an essay: They were a pair of blazing furnaces, I was a block of ice. If I got too close to them, I would dissolve into a cloud of steam. In my understanding, one writer influences another when they enjoy a profound spiritual kinship, what is often referred to as “hearts beating in unison.” That explains why, though I had read little of their work, a few pages were sufficient for me to comprehend what they were doing and how they were doing it, which led to my understanding of what I should do and how I should do it. What I should do was simplicity itself: Write my own stories in my own way. My way was that of the marketplace storyteller, with which I was so familiar, the way my grandfather and my grandmother and other village old-timers told stories. In all candor, I never gave a thought to audience when I was telling my stories, perhaps my audience was made up of people like my mother, and perhaps it was only me. The early stories were narrations of my personal experience: the boy who received a whipping in “Dry River,” for instance, or the boy who never spoke in “The Transparent Carrot.” I had actually done something bad enough to receive a whipping from my father, and I had actually worked the bellows for a blacksmith on a bridge site. Naturally, personal experience cannot be turned into fiction exactly as it happened, no matter how unique that might be. Fiction has to be fictional, has to be imaginative. To many of my friends, “The Transparent Carrot” is my very best story, I have no opinion one way or the other. What I can say is, “The Transparent Carrot” is more symbolic and more profoundly meaningful than any other story I’ve written. That dark-skinned boy with the superhuman ability to suffer and a superhuman degree of sensitivity represents the soul of my entire fictional output. Not one of all the fictional characters I’ve created since then is as close to my soul as he is. Or put a different way, among all the characters a writer creates, there is always one that stands above all the others. For me, that laconic boy is the one. Though he says nothing, he leads the way for all the others, in all their variety, performing freely on the Northeast Gaomi Township stage. A person can experience only so much, and once you have exhausted your own stories, you must tell the stories of others. And so, out of the depths of my memories, like conscripted soldiers, rose stories of family members, of fellow villagers, and of long-dead ancestors I learned of from the mouths of old-timers. They waited expectantly for me to tell their stories. My grandfather and grandmother, my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles, my wife and my daughter have all appeared in my stories. Even unrelated residents of Northeast Gaomi Township have made cameo appearances. Of course they have undergone literary modification to transform them into larger-than-life fictional characters. An aunt of mine is the central character of my latest novel, Frogs. The announcement of the Nobel Prize sent journalists swarming to her home with interview requests. At first, she was patiently accommodating, but she soon had to escape their attentions by fleeing to her son’s home in the provincial capital. I don’t deny that she was my model in writing Frogs, but the differences between her and the fictional aunt are extensive. The fictional aunt is arrogant and domineering, in places virtually thuggish, while my real aunt is kind and gentle, the classic caring wife and loving mother. My real aunt’s golden years have been happy and fulfilling, her fictional counterpart suffers insomnia in her late years as a result of spiritual torment, and walks the nights like a specter, wearing a dark robe. I am grateful to my real aunt for not being angry with me for how I changed her in the novel. I also greatly respect her wisdom in comprehending the complex relationship between fictional characters and real people. After my mother died, in the midst of almost crippling grief, I decided to write a novel for her. Big Breasts and Wide Hips is that novel. Once my plan took shape, I was burning with such emotion that I completed a draft of half a million words in only eighty-three days. In Big Breasts and Wide Hips I shamelessly used material associated with my mother’s actual experience, but the fictional mother’s emotional state is either a total fabrication or a composite of many of Northeast Gaomi Township’s mothers. Though I wrote “To the spirit of my mother” on the dedication page, the novel was really written for all mothers everywhere, evidence, perhaps, of my overweening ambition, in much the same way as I hope to make tiny Northeast Gaomi Township a microcosm of China, even of the whole world. The process of creation is unique to every writer. Each of my novels differs from the others in terms of plot and guiding inspiration. Some, such as “The Transparent Carrot,” were born in dreams, while others, like The Garlic Ballads have their origin in actual events. Whether the source of a work is a dream or real life, only if it is integrated with individual experience can it be imbued with individuality, be populated with typical characters molded by lively detail, employ richly evocative language, and boast a well-crafted structure. Here I must point out that in The Garlic Ballads I introduced a real-life storyteller and singer in one of the novel’s most important roles. I wish I hadn’t used his real name, though his words and actions were made up. This is a recurring phenomenon with me. I’ll start out using characters’ real names in order to achieve a sense of intimacy, and after the work is finished, it will seem too late to change those names. This has led to people who see their names in my novels going to my father to vent their displeasure. He always apologizes in my place, but then urges them not to take such things so seriously. He’ll say: “The first sentence in Red Sorghum, ‘My father, a bandit’s offspring,’ didn’t upset me, so why should you be unhappy?” My greatest challenges come with writing novels that deal with social realities, such as The Garlic Ballads, not because I’m afraid of being openly critical of the darker aspects of society, but because heated emotions and anger allow politics to suppress literature and transform a novel into reportage of a social event. As a member of society, a novelist is entitled to his own stance and viewpoint, but when he is writing he must take a humanistic stance, and write accordingly. Only then can literature not just originate in events, but transcend them, not just show concern for politics but be greater than politics. Possibly because I’ve lived so much of my life in difficult circumstances, I think I have a more profound understanding of life. I know what real courage is, and I understand true compassion. I know that nebulous terrain exists in the hearts and minds of every person, terrain that cannot be adequately characterized in simple terms of right and wrong or good and bad, and this vast territory is where a writer gives free rein to his talent. So long as the work correctly and vividly describes this nebulous, massively contradictory terrain, it will inevitably transcend politics and be endowed with literary excellence. Prattling on and on about my own work must be annoying, but my life and works are inextricably linked, so if I don’t talk about my work, I don’t know what else to say. I hope you are in a forgiving mood. I was a modern-day storyteller who hid in the background of his early work, but with the novel Sandalwood Death I jumped out of the shadows. My early work can be characterized as a series of soliloquies, with no reader in mind, starting with this novel, however, I visualized myself standing in a public square spiritedly telling my story to a crowd of listeners. This tradition is a worldwide phenomenon in fiction, but is especially so in China. At one time, I was a diligent student of Western modernist fiction, and I experimented with all sorts of narrative styles. But in the end I came back to my traditions. To be sure, this return was not without its modifications. Sandalwood Death and the novels that followed are inheritors of the Chinese classical novel tradition but enhanced by Western literary techniques. What is known as innovative fiction is, for the most part, a result of this mixture, which is not limited to domestic traditions with foreign techniques, but can include mixing fiction with art from other realms. Sandalwood Death, for instance, mixes fiction with local opera, while some of my early work was partly nurtured by fine art, music, even acrobatics. Finally, I ask your indulgence to talk about my novel Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. The Chinese title comes from Buddhist scripture, and I’ve been told that my translators have had fits trying to render it into their languages. I am not especially well versed in Buddhist scripture and have but a superficial understanding of the religion. I chose this title because I believe that the basic tenets of the Buddhist faith represent universal knowledge, and that mankind’s many disputes are utterly without meaning in the Buddhist realm. In that lofty view of the universe, the world of man is to be pitied. My novel is not a religious tract, in it I wrote of man’s fate and human emotions, of man’s limitations and human generosity, and of people’s search for happiness and the lengths to which they will go, the sacrifices they will make, to uphold their beliefs. Lan Lian, a character who takes a stand against contemporary trends, is, in my view, a true hero. A peasant in a neighboring village was the model for this character. As a youngster I often saw him pass by our door pushing a creaky, wooden-wheeled cart, with a lame donkey up front, led by his bound-foot wife. Given the collective nature of society back then, this strange labor group presented a bizarre sight that kept them out of step with the times. In the eyes of us children, they were clowns marching against historical trends, provoking in us such indignation that we threw stones at them as they passed us on the street. Years later, after I had begun writing, that peasant and the tableau he presented floated into my mind, and I knew that one day I would write a novel about him, that sooner or later I would tell his story to the world. But it wasn’t until the year 2005, when I viewed the Buddhist mural “The Six Stages of Samsara” on a temple wall that I knew exactly how to go about telling his story. The announcement of my Nobel Prize has led to controversy. At first I thought I was the target of the disputes, but over time I’ve come to realize that the real target was a person who had nothing to do with me. Like someone watching a play in a theater, I observed the performances around me. I saw the winner of the prize both garlanded with flowers and besieged by stone-throwers and mudslingers. I was afraid he would succumb to the assault, but he emerged from the garlands of flowers and the stones, a smile on his face, he wiped away mud and grime, stood calmly off to the side, and said to the crowd: For a writer, the best way to speak is by writing. You will find everything I need to say in my works. Speech is carried off by the wind, the written word can never be obliterated. I would like you to find the patience to read my books. I cannot force you to do that, and even if you do, I do not expect your opinion of me to change. No writer has yet appeared, anywhere in the world, who is liked by all his readers, that is especially true during times like these. Even though I would prefer to say nothing, since it is something I must do on this occasion, let me just say this: I am a storyteller, so I am going to tell you some stories. When I was a third-grade student in the nineteen sixties, my school organized a field trip to an exhibit of suffering, where, under the direction of our teacher, we cried bitter tears. I let my tears stay on my cheeks for the benefit of our teacher, and watched as some of my classmates spat in their hands and rubbed it on their faces as pretend tears. I saw one student among all those wailing children, some real, some phony, whose face was dry and who remained silent without covering his face with his hands. He just looked at us, eyes wide open in an expression of surprise or confusion. After the visit I reported him to the teacher, and he was given a disciplinary warning. Years later, when I expressed my remorse over informing on the boy, the teacher said that at least ten students had done what I did. The boy himself had died a decade or more earlier, and my conscience was deeply troubled when I thought of him. But I learned something important from this incident, and that is: When everyone around you is crying, you deserve to be allowed not to cry, and when the tears are all for show, your right not to cry is greater still. Here is another story: More than thirty years ago, when I was in the army, I was in my office reading one evening when an elderly officer opened the door and came in. He glanced down at the seat in front of me and muttered, “Hm, where is everyone?” I stood up and said in a loud voice, “Are you saying I’m no one?” The old fellow’s ears turned red from embarrassment, and he walked out. For a long time after that I was proud about what I considered a gutsy performance. Years later, that pride turned to intense qualms of conscience. Bear with me, please, for one last story, one my grandfather told me many years ago: A group of eight out-of-town bricklayers took refuge from a storm in a rundown temple. Thunder rumbled outside, sending fireballs their way. They even heard what sounded like dragon shrieks. The men were terrified, their faces ashen. “Among the eight of us,” one of them said, “is someone who must have offended the heavens with a terrible deed. The guilty person ought to volunteer to step outside to accept his punishment and spare the innocent from suffering.” Naturally, there were no volunteers. So one of the others came up with a proposal: “Since no one is willing to go outside, let’s all fling our straw hats toward the door. Whoever’s hat flies out through the temple door is the guilty party, and we’ll ask him to go out and accept his punishment.” So they flung their hats toward the door. Seven hats were blown back inside, one went out the door. They pressured the eighth man to go out and accept his punishment, and when he balked, they picked him up and flung him out the door. I’ll bet you all know how the story ends: They had no sooner flung him out the door than the temple collapsed around them. I am a storyteller. Telling stories earned me the Nobel Prize in Literature. Many interesting things have happened to me in the wake of winning the prize, and they have convinced me that truth and justice are alive and well. So I will continue telling my stories in the days to come. Thank you all. Translated by Howard Goldblatt

DARK ALLIANCE. The CIA, the CONTRAS, and the CRACK COCAINE EXPLOSION. GARY WEBB. Foreword. BY CONGRESSWOMAN MAXINE WATERS. The night that I read the "Dark Alliance" series, I was so alarmed, that I literally sat straight up in bed, poring over every word. I reflected on the many meetings I attended throughout South Central Los Angeles during the nineteen eighties, when I constantly asked, "Where are all the drugs coming from?" I asked myself that night whether it was possible for such a vast amount of drugs to be smuggled into any district under the noses of the community leaders, police, sheriff's department, FBI, DEA and other law enforcement agencies. I decided to investigate the allegations. I met with Ricky Ross, Alan Fenster, Mike Ruppert, Celerino Castillo, Jerry Guzetta, and visited the L A Sheriff's Department. My investigation took me to Nicaragua where I interviewed Enrique Miranda Jaime in prison, and I met with the head of Sandinista intelligence Tomas Borge. I had the opportunity to question Contra leaders Adolfo Calero and Eden Pastora in a Senate investigative hearing, which was meant to be perfunctory, until I arrived to ask questions based on the vast knowledge I had gathered in my investigation. I forced Calero to admit he had a relationship with the CIA through the United States Embassy, where he directed USAID funds to community groups and organizations. The time I spent investigating the allegations of the "Dark Alliance" series led me to the undeniable conclusion that the CIA, DEA, DIA, and FBI knew about drug trafficking in South Central Los Angeles. They were either part of the trafficking or turned a blind eye to it, in an effort to fund the Contra war. I am convinced that drug money played an important role in the Contra war and that drug money was used by both sides. The saddest part of these revelations is the wrecked lives and lost possibilities of so many people who got caught up in selling drugs, went to prison, ended up addicted, dead, or walking zombies from drugs. It may take time, but I am convinced that history is going to record that Gary Webb wrote the truth. The establishment refused to give Gary Webb the credit that he deserved. They teamed up in an effort to destroy the story, and very nearly succeeded. There are a few of us who congratulate Gary for his honesty and courage. We will not let this story end until the naysayers and opponents are forced to apologize for their reckless and irresponsible attacks on Gary Webb. The editors of the San Jose Mercury News did not have the strength to withstand the attacks, so they abandoned Gary Webb, despite their knowledge that Gary was working on further documentation to substantiate the allegations of the series. This book completely and absolutely confirms Gary Webb's devastating series. This book is the final chapter on this sordid tale and brings to light one of the worst official abuses in our nation's history. We all owe Gary Webb a debt of gratitude for his brave work. PROLOGUE, "It was like they didn't want to know," When I came to work in the sprawling newsroom of the Cleveland Plain Dealer in the early nineteen eighties, I was assigned to share a computer terminal with a tall middle-aged reporter with a long, virtually unpronounceable Polish name. To save time, people called him Tom A. To me, arriving from a small daily in Kentucky, Tom A was the epitome of the hard-boiled big-city newspaperman. The city officials he wrote about and the editors who mangled his copy were "fuckinjerks." A question prompting an affirmative response would elicit "fuckin-a-tweetie" instead of "yes." And when his phone rang he would say, "It's the Big One," before picking up the receiver. No matter how many times I heard that, I always laughed. The Big One was the reporter's holy grail, the tip that led you from the daily morass of press conferences and cop calls on to the trail of The Biggest Story You'd Ever Write, the one that would turn the rest of your career into an anticlimax. I never knew if it was cynicism or optimism that made him say it, but deep inside, I thought he was jinxing himself. The Big One, I believed, would be like a bullet with your name on it. You'd never hear it coming. And almost a decade later, long after Tom A, the Plain Dealer, and I had parted company, that's precisely how it happened. I didn't even take the call. It manifested itself as a pink While You Were Out message slip left on my desk in July 1995. There was no message, just a woman's name and a phone number, somewhere in the East Bay. I called, but there was no answer, so I put the message aside. If I have time, I told myself, I'll try again later. Several days later an identical message slip appeared. Its twin was still sitting on a pile of papers at the edge of my desk. This time the woman was home. "I saw the story you did a couple weeks ago," she began. "The one about the drug seizure laws. I thought you did a good job." "Thanks a lot," I said, and I meant it. She was the first reader who'd called about that story, a front-page piece in the San Jose Mercury News about a convicted cocaine trafficker who, without any formal legal training, had beaten the U-S Justice Department in court three straight times and was on the verge of flushing the government's multibillion-dollar asset forfeiture program right down the toilet. The inmate, a lifer, had argued that losing your property and going to jail was like being punished twice for the same crime, double jeopardy, and seventeen judges from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with him. Faced with the prospect of setting thousands of dopers free or returning billions in seized property, the U-S Supreme Court would later overturn two of its own rulings in order to kill off the inmate's suit. "You didn't just give the government's side of it," she continued. "The other stories I read about the case were like, Omigod, they're going to let drug dealers out of jail. Isn't this terrible?" I asked what I could do for her. "My boyfriend is in a situation like that," she said, "and I thought it might make a good follow-up story for you. What the government has done to him is unbelievable." "Your boyfriend?" "He's in prison right now on cocaine trafficking charges. He's been in jail for three years." "How much more time has he got?" "Well, that's just it," she said. "He's never been brought to trial. He's done three years already, and he's never been convicted of anything." "He must have waived his speedy trial rights," I said. "No, none of them have," she said. "There are about five or six guys who were indicted with him, and most of them are still waiting to be tried, too. They want to go to trial because they think it's a bullshit case. Rafael keeps writing letters to the judge and the prosecutor, saying, you know, try me or let me go." "Rafael's your boyfriend?" "Yes. Rafael Cornejo." "He's Colombian?" "No, Nicaraguan. But he's lived in the Bay Area since he was like two or something." It's interesting, I thought, but not the kind of story likely to excite my editors. Some drug dealers don't like being in jail? Oh. "What's the connection to the forfeiture story?" I asked. Rafael, she explained, had been a very successful "businessman," and the government, under the asset forfeiture program, had seized and sold his automobiles, his houses, and his businesses, emptied his bank accounts, and left him without enough money to hire a lawyer. He had a court-appointed lawyer, she said, who was getting paid by the hour and didn't seem to care how long the case took. "Rafael had the most gorgeous house out in Lafayette, and the government sold it for next to nothing. Now what happens if he's acquitted? He spends three or four years in jail for a crime he didn't commit, and when he gets out, someone else is living in his house. I mean, what kind of a country is this? I think it would make a good story." It might, I told her, if I hadn't done it half a dozen times already. Two years earlier, I'd written a series for the Mercury called "The Forfeiture Racket," about the police in California busting into private homes and taking furniture, televisions, Nintendo games, belt buckles, welfare checks, snow tires, and loose change under the guise of cracking down on drug traffickers. Many times they'd never file charges, or the charges would be dropped once the victims signed over the loot. The series created such an outcry that the California legislature had abolished the forfeiture program a few weeks later. But I knew what I would hear if I pitched the woman's story to my editors: We've done that already. And that was what I told her. She was not dissuaded. "There's something about Rafael's case that I don't think you would have ever done before," she persisted. "One of the government's witnesses is a guy who used to work with the CIA selling drugs. Tons of it." "What now?" I wasn't sure I'd heard correctly. "The CIA. He used to work for them or something. He's a Nicaraguan too. Rafael knows him, he can tell you. He told me the guy had admitted bringing four tons of cocaine into the country. Four tons! And if that's what he's admitted to, you can imagine how much it really was. And now he's back working for the government again." I put down my pen. She'd sounded so rational. Where did this CIA stuff come from? In seventeen years of investigative reporting, I had ended up doubting the credibility of every person who ever called me with a tip about the CIA. I flashed on Eddie Johnson, a conspiracy theorist who would come bopping into the Kentucky Post's newsroom every so often with amazing tales of intrigue and corruption. Interviewing Eddie was one of the rites of passage at the Post. Someone would invariably send him over to the newest reporter on the staff to see how long it took the rookie to figure out he was spinning his wheels. Suddenly I remembered who I was talking to, a cocaine dealer's moll. That explained it. "Oh, the CIA. Well, you're right. I've never done any stories about the CIA. I don't run across them too often here in Sacramento. See, I mostly cover state government, " "You probably think I'm crazy, right?" "No, no," I assured her. "You know, could be true, who's to say? When it comes to the CIA, stranger things have happened." There was a short silence, and I could hear her exhale sharply. "How dare you treat me like I'm an idiot," she said evenly. "You don't even know me. I work for a law firm. I've copied every single piece of paper that's been filed in Rafael's case and I can document everything I'm telling you. You can ask Rafael, and he can tell you himself. What's so hard about coming over and at least taking a look at this stuff?" "That's a fair question," I allowed. Now, what was my answer? Because I lied and I do think you're crazy? Or because I'm too lazy to get up and chase a story that appears to have a one-in-a-thousand chance of being true? "You say you can document this?" "Absolutely. I have all the files here at home. You're welcome to look at all of it if you want. And Rafael can tell you, " In the background a child began yowling. "Just a minute, will you? That's my daughter. She just fell down." The phone thunked on the other end, and I heard footsteps retreating into the distance. Well, that's a promising sign, I thought. Were she a raving dope fiend, they wouldn't let her raise an infant. She came back on, bouncing the sobbing toddler. I asked her where she lived. "Oakland. But Rafael's got a court date in San Francisco coming up in a couple weeks. Why don't I meet you at the courthouse? That way you can sit in on the hearing, and if you're interested we could get lunch or something and talk." That cinched it. Now the worst that could happen was lunch in San Francisco in mid-July, away from the phones and the editors. And, who knows, there was an off chance she was telling the truth. "Okay, fine," I said. "But bring some of those records with you, okay? I can look through them while I'm sitting there in court." She laughed. "You don't trust me, do you? You probably get a lot of calls like this." "Not many like this," I said. Flipping on my computer, I logged into the Dialog database, which contains full-text electronic versions of millions of newspaper and magazine stories, property records, legal filings, you name it. If you've ever been written about or done something significant in court, chances are Dialog will find you. Okay. Let's see if Rafael Cornejo even exists. A message flashed on the screen: "Your search has retrieved 11 documents. Display?" So far so good. I called up the most recent one, a newspaper story that had appeared a year before in the San Francisco Chronicle. My eyes widened. "4 Indicted in Prison Breakout Plot, Pleasanton Inmates Planned to Leave in Copter, Prosecutors Say." I quickly scanned the story. Son of a bitch. Four inmates were indicted yesterday in connection with a bold plan to escape from the federal lockup in Pleasanton using plastic explosives and a helicopter that would have taken them to a cargo ship at sea. The group also considered killing a guard if their keepers tried to thwart the escape, prosecutors contend. Rafael Cornejo, 39, of Lafayette, an alleged cocaine kingpin with reputed ties to Nicaraguan drug traffickers and Panamanian money launderers, was among those indicted for conspiracy to escape. The story called Cornejo "a longtime drug dealer who was convicted in 1977 of cocaine trafficking in Panama. He also has served time in a U-S prison for tax evasion. He owns several homes and commercial properties in the Bay Area." This sure sounds like the same guy, I thought. I scrolled down to the next hit, a San Francisco Examiner story. The four men were charged with planning to use C-4 plastic explosives to blow out a prison window and with making a 9-inch "shank" that could be used to cut a guard's "guts out" if he tried to block their run to the prison yard. Once in the yard, they allegedly would be picked up by a helicopter and flown to a Panamanian cargo ship in the Pacific, federal officials said. The remaining stories described Cornejo's arrest and indictment in 1992, the result of an eighteen-month FBI investigation. Suspected drug kingpin. Head of a large cocaine distribution ring on the West Coast. Allegedly involved in a major cocaine pipeline that ran from Cali, Colombia, to several West Coast cities. Importing millions of dollars worth of cocaine via San Diego and Los Angeles to the Bay Area. That's some boyfriend she's got there, I mused. The newspaper stories make him sound like Al Capone. And he wants to sit down and have a chat? That'll be the day. When I pushed open the doors to the vast courtroom in the San Francisco federal courthouse a few weeks later, I found a scene from Miami Vice. To my left, a dark-suited army of federal agents and prosecutors huddled around a long, polished wooden table, looking grim and talking in low voices. On the right, an array of long-haired, expensively attired defense attorneys were whispering to a group of long-haired, angry-looking Hispanics, their clients. The judge had not yet arrived. I had no idea what my tipster looked like, so I scanned the faces in the courtroom, trying to pick out a woman who could be a drug kingpin's girlfriend. She found me first. "You must be Gary," said a voice behind me. I turned, and for an instant all I saw was cleavage and jewelry. She looked to be in her mid-twenties. Dark hair. Bright red lipstick. Long legs. Short skirt. Dressed to accentuate her positive attributes. I could barely speak. "You're?" She tossed her hair and smiled. "Pleased to meet you." She stuck out a hand with a giant diamond on it, and I shook it weakly. We sat down in the row of seats behind the prosecutors' table, and I glanced at her again. That boyfriend of hers must be going nuts. "How did you know it was me?" I asked. "I was looking for someone who looked like a reporter. I saw you with a notebook in your back pocket and figured." "That obvious, is it?" I pulled out the notepad and got out a pen. "Why don't you fill me in on who's who here?" She pointed out Rafael, a short handsome Latino with a strong jaw and long, wavy hair parted in the middle. He swiveled in his chair, looked right at us, and seemed perturbed. His girlfriend waved, and he whirled back around without acknowledging her. "He doesn't look very happy," I observed. "He doesn't like seeing me with other men." "Uh, why was he trying to break out of jail?" I asked. "He wasn't. He was getting ready to make bail, and they didn't want to let him out, so they trumped up these phony escape charges. Now, because he's under indictment for escape, he isn't eligible for bail anymore." The escape charges were in fact the product of an unsubstantiated accusation by a fellow inmate, a convicted swindler. They were later thrown out of court on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct, and Cornejo's prosecutor, Assistant U-S Attorney David Hall, was referred to the Justice Department for investigation by federal judge Saundra Brown Armstrong. In a San Francisco Daily Recorder story about the misconduct charge, it was noted that "it is not the first time that Hall has been under such scrutiny. While serving with the Department of Justice in Texas, the Office of Professional Responsibility reviewed Hall after an informant accused Hall of approving drug smuggling into the U-S. Hall said the office found no merit in the charge." She pointed out Hall, a large blond man with broad features. "Who are the rest of those people?" I asked. "The two men standing over there are the FBI agents on the case. The woman is Hall's boss, Teresa Canepa. She's the bitch who's got it in for Rafael." As she was pointing everyone out, the FBI agents whispered to each other and then tapped Hall on the shoulder. All three turned and looked at me. "What's with them?" "They probably think you're my hit man." She smiled, and the agents frowned back. "Oh, they just hate me. I called the cops on them once, you know." I looked at her. "You called the cops on the FBI." "Well, they were lurking around outside my house after dark. They could have been rapists or something. How was I supposed to know?" I glanced back over at the federal table and saw that the entire group had now turned to stare. I was certainly making a lot of friends. "Can we go out in the hall and talk for a minute?" I asked her. We sat on a bench just outside the door. I told her I needed to get case numbers so I could ask for the court files. And, by the way, did she bring those documents she'd mentioned? She reached into her briefcase and brought out a stack an inch thick. "I've got three bankers' boxes full back at home, and you're welcome to see all of it, but this is the stuff I was telling you about concerning the witness." I flipped through the documents. Most of them were federal law enforcement reports, DEA-6s and FBI 302s, every page bearing big black letters that said, "MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED, PROPERTY OF U-S GOVERNMENT." At the bottom of the stack was a transcript of some sort. I pulled it out. "Grand Jury for the Northern District of California, Grand Jury Number 93-5 Grand Jury Invoice. Number 9301035. Reporter's Transcript of Proceedings. Testimony of Oscar Danilo Blandon. February 3, 1994." I whistled. "Federal grand jury transcripts? I'm impressed. Where'd you get these?" "The government turned them over under discovery. Dave Hall did. I heard he really got reamed out by the DEA when they found out about all the stuff he gave us." I looked through the transcript and saw parts that had been blacked out. "Who did this?" "That's how we got it. Rafael's lawyer is asking for a clean copy. As you'll see, they also cut out a bunch of stuff on the DEA-6s. There's a hearing on his motion coming up." I skimmed the thirty-nine-page transcript. Whatever else this Blandon fellow may have been, he was pretty much the way Cornejo's girlfriend had described him. A big-time trafficker who'd dealt dope for many years, started out dealing for the Contras, a right-wing Nicaraguan guerrilla army, in Los Angeles. He'd used drug money to buy trucks and supplies. At some point after Ronald Reagan got into power, the CIA had decided his services as a fund-raiser were no longer required, and he stayed in the drug business for himself. What made the story so compelling was that he was appearing before the grand jury as a U-S government witness. He wasn't under investigation. He wasn't trying to beat a rap. He was there as a witness for the prosecution, which meant that the U-S Justice Department was vouching for him. But who was the grand jury investigating? Every time the testimony led in that direction, words, mostly names, were blacked out. "Who is this family they keep asking him about?" "Rafael says it's Meneses. Norwin Meneses and his nephews. Have you heard of them?" "Nope." "Norwin is one of the biggest traffickers on the West Coast. When Rafael got arrested, that's who the FBI and the IRS wanted to talk to him about. Rafael has known Norwin and his nephews for years. Since the Seventies, I think. The government is apparently using Blandon to get to Meneses." Inside, I heard the bailiff calling the court to order, and we returned to the courtroom. During the hearing, I kept trying to recall where I had heard about this Contra-cocaine business before. Had I read it in a book? Seen it on television? It bothered me. I believed that I had a better-than-average knowledge of the civil war in Nicaragua, having religiously followed the Iran-Contra hearings on television. I would videotape them while I was at work and watch them late into the night, marvelling the next morning at how wretchedly the newspapers were covering the story. Like most Americans, I knew the Contras had been a creation of the CIA, the darlings of the Reagan Right, made up largely of the vanquished followers of deposed Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza and his brutal army, the National Guard. But drug trafficking? Surely, I thought, if there had been some concrete evidence, it would have stuck in my mind. Maybe I was confusing it with something else. During a break, I went to the restroom and bumped into Assistant U-S Attorney Hall. Just in case he and the FBI really did think I was Coral's hit man, I introduced myself as a reporter. Hall eyed me cautiously. "Why would the Mercury News be interested in this case?" he asked. "You should have been here two years ago. This is old stuff now." I considered tap dancing around his question. Normally I didn't tell people what I was working on, because then they didn't know what not to say. But I decided to hit Hall with it head-on and see what kind of reaction I got. It would probably be the last thing he'd expect to hear. "I'm not really doing a story on this case. I'm looking into one of the witnesses. A man named Blandon. Am I pronouncing the name correctly?" Hall appeared surprised. "What about him?" "About his selling cocaine for the Contras." Hall leaned back slightly, folded his arms, and gave me a quizzical smile. "Who have you been talking to?" "Actually, I've been reading. And I was curious to know what you made of his testimony about selling drugs for the Contras in L A Did you believe him?" "Well, yeah, but I don't know how you could absolutely confirm it. I mean, I don't know what to tell you," he said with a slight laugh. "The CIA won't tell me anything." I jotted down his remark. "Oh, you've asked them?" "Yeah, but I never heard anything back. Not that I expected to. But that's all ancient history. You're really doing a story about that?" "I don't know if I'm doing a story at all," I said. "At this point, I'm just trying to see if there is one. Do you know where Blandon is these days?" "Not a clue." That couldn't be true, I thought. How could he not know? He was one of the witnesses against Rafael Cornejo. "From what I heard," I told him, "he's a pretty significant witness in your case here. He hasn't disappeared, has he? He is going to testify?" Hall's friendly demeanor changed. "We're not at all certain about that." When I got back to Sacramento, I called my editor at the main office in San Jose, Dawn Garcia, and filled her in on the day's events. Dawn was a former investigative reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle and had been the Mercury's state editor for several years, overseeing our bureaus in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento. We had a good working relationship and had broken a number of award-winning stories. Unlike many editors I'd worked with, Dawn could size up a story's news value fairly quickly. I read her several portions of Blandon's grand jury testimony. "Weren't there some stories about this back in the nineteen eighties?" she asked. "See, that's what I thought. I remember something, but I can't place the source." "Maybe the Iran-Contra hearings?" "I don't think so," I said. "I followed those hearings pretty closely. I don't remember anything about drug trafficking." Dawn's memory, it turned out, was better than mine. During one part of Oliver North's congressional testimony in July 1987, two men from Baltimore had jumped up in the audience with a large banner reading, "Ask about the cocaine smuggling." The men began shouting questions, "What about the cocaine dealing that the U-S is paying for? Why don't you ask questions about drug deliveries?", as they were dragged from the room by the police. "So, what do you think?" she asked, editorese for "Is there a story here and how long will it take to get it?" "I don't know. I'd like to spend a little time looking into it at least. Hell, if his testimony is true, it could be a pretty good story. The Contras were selling coke in L A? I've never heard that one before." She mulled it over for a moment before agreeing. "It's not like there's a lot going on in Sacramento right now," she said. That was true enough. The sun-baked state capital was entering its summertime siesta, when triple-digit temperatures sent solons adjourning happily to mountain or seashore locales. With any luck, I was about to join them. "I need to go down to San Diego for a couple days," I said. "Blandon testified that he was arrested down there in 92 for conspiracy, so there's probably a court file somewhere. He may be living down there, for all I know. Probably the quickest way to find out if what he was saying is true is to find him." Dawn okayed the trip, and a few days later I was in balmy San Diego, squinting at microfiche in the clerk's office of the U-S District Court. I found Blandon's case file within a few minutes. He and six others, including his wife, had been secretly indicted May 5, 1992, for conspiring to distribute cocaine. He'd been buying wholesale quantities from suppliers and reselling it to other wholesalers. Way up on the food chain. According to the indictment, he'd been a trafficker for ten years, had clients nationwide, and had bragged on tape of selling other L A dealers between two and four tons of cocaine. He was such a big-timer that the judge had ordered him and his wife held in jail without bail because they posed "a threat to the health and moral fiber of the community." The file contained a transcript of a detention hearing, held to determine if the couple should be released on bail. Blandon's prosecutor, Assistant U-S Attorney L J O'Neale, brought out his best ammo to persuade the judge to keep the couple locked up until trial. "Mister Blandon's family was closely associated with the Somoza government that was overthrown in 1979," O'Neale said. Blandon had been partners with a Jairo Meneses in 764 kilos of cocaine that had been seized in Nicaragua in 1991, O'Neale claimed, and he also owned hotels and casinos in Nicaragua with Meneses. He had a house in Costa Rica. He had a business in Mexico, relatives in Spain, phony addresses all over the United States, and "unlimited access to money." "He is a large-scale cocaine trafficker and has been for a long time," O'Neale argued. Given the amount of cocaine he'd sold, O'Neale said, Blandon's minimum mandatory punishment was "off the charts", life plus a 4 million fine, giving him plenty of incentive to flee the country. Blandon's lawyer, Brad Brunon, confirmed the couple's close ties to Somoza and produced a photo of them at a wedding reception with El Presidente and his spouse. That just showed what fine families they were from, he said. The accusations in Nicaragua against Blandon, Brunon argued, were "politically motivated because of Mister Blandon's activities with the Contras in the early nineteen eighties." Damn, here it is again. His own lawyer says he was working for the Contras. Brunon argued that the government had no case against his client, and no right to keep him in jail until the trial. "There is not the first kilogram of cocaine that had been seized in this case," Brunon said. "What you have are accusations from a series of informants." But the judge didn't see it that way. While allowing Chepita to post bond, he ordered Danilo held without bail. From the docket sheet, I could see that the case had never gone to trial. Everyone had pleaded out, starting with Blandon. Five months after his arrest, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy, and the charges against his wife were dropped. After that, his fugitive codefendants were quickly arrested and pleaded guilty. But they all received extremely short sentences. One was even put on unsupervised probation. I didn't get it. If O'Neale had such a rock-solid case against a major drug-trafficking ring, why were they let off so easily? People did more time for burglary. Even Blandon, the ringleader, only got forty-eight months, and from the docket sheet it appeared that was later cut almost in half. As I read on, I realized that Blandon was already back on the streets, totally unsupervised. No parole. Free as a bird. He'd walked out of jail September 19, 1994, on the arm of an INS agent, Robert Tellez. He'd done twenty-eight months for ten years of cocaine trafficking. The last page of the file told me why. It was a motion filed by U-S Attorney O'Neale, asking the court to unseal Blandon's plea agreement and a couple of internal Justice Department memorandums. "During the course of this case, defendant Oscar Danilo Blandon cooperated with and rendered substantial assistance to the United States," O'Neale wrote. At the government's request, his jail sentence had been secretly cut twice. O'Neale then persuaded the judge to let Blandon out of jail completely, telling the court he was needed as a full-time paid informant for the U-S Department of Justice. Since he'd be undercover, O'Neale wrote, he couldn't very well have probation agents checking up on him. He was released on unsupervised probation. All of this information had once been secret, I noticed, but since Blandon was going to testify in a case in northern California, the Cornejo case, I presumed, O'Neale had to have the plea agreement and all the records relating to his sentence reductions unsealed and turned over to defense counsel. I walked back to my hotel convinced that I was on the right track. Now there were two separate sources saying, in court, that Blandon was involved with the Contras and had been selling large amounts of cocaine in Los Angeles. And when the government finally had a chance to put him away forever, it had opened up the cell doors and let him walk. I needed to find Blandon. I had a million questions only he could answer. I began calling the defense attorneys involved in the 1992 conspiracy case, hoping one of them would know what had become of him. I struck out with every call. One of the lawyers was out of town. The rest of them remembered next to nothing about the case or their clients. "It was all over so quickly I barely had time to open a file," one said. The consensus was that once Blandon flipped, his compadres scrambled to get the best deal they could, and no one prepared for trial. Discovery had been minimal. But one thing wasn't clear. What had the government gotten out of the deal that was worth giving Blandon and his crew such an easy ride? O'Neale claimed he'd given information about a murder in the Bay Area, but from what I could see from his DEA and FBI interviews, he'd merely told the government that the man had been murdered, something the police already knew. Back in Sacramento, I did some checking on the targets of the 1994 grand jury investigation, the Meneses family, and again my tipster's description proved accurate, perhaps even understated. I found a 1991 story from the San Francisco Chronicle and a 1986 San Francisco Examiner piece that strongly suggested that Meneses, too, had been dealing cocaine for the Contras during the nineteen eighties. One of the stories described him as the "king of cocaine in Nicaragua" and the Cali cartel's representative there. The Chronicle story mentioned that a U-S Senate investigation had run across him in connection with the Contras and allegations of cocaine smuggling. That must have been where I heard about this Contra drug stuff before, I decided. A congressional hearing. At the California State Library's Government Publications Section, I scoured the CIS indices, which catalog congressional hearings by topic and witness name. Meneses wasn't listed, but there had been a series of hearings back in 1987 and 1988, I saw, dealing with the issue of the Contras and cocaine: a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. For the next six days I sat with rolls of dimes at a microfiche printer in the quiet wood-paneled recesses of the library, reading and copying many of the 1,100 pages of transcripts and exhibits of the Kerry Committee hearings, growing more astounded each day. The committee's investigators had uncovered direct links between drug dealers and the Contras. They'd gotten into BCCI years before anyone knew what that banking scandal even was. They'd found evidence of Manuel Noriega's involvement with drugs, years before the invasion. Many of the Kerry Committee witnesses, I noted, later became U-S Justice Department witnesses against Noriega. Kerry and his staff had taken videotaped depositions from Contra leaders who acknowledged receiving drug profits, with the apparent knowledge of the CIA. The drug dealers had admitted, under oath, giving money to the Contras, and had passed polygraph tests. The pilots had admitted flying weapons down and cocaine and marijuana back, landing in at least one instance at Homestead Air Force Base in Florida. The exhibits included U-S Customs reports, FBI reports, internal Justice Department memos. It almost knocked me off my chair. It was all there in black and white. Blandon's testimony about selling cocaine for the Contras in L A wasn't some improbable fantasy. This could have actually happened. I called Jack Blum, the Washington, D-C, attorney who'd headed the Kerry investigation, and he confirmed that Norwin Meneses had been an early target. But the Justice Department, he said, had stonewalled the committee's requests for information and he had finally given up trying to obtain the records, moving on to other, more productive areas. "There was a lot of weird stuff going on out on the West Coast, but after our experiences with Justice. We mainly concentrated on the cocaine coming into the East." "Why is it that I can barely remember this?" I asked. "I mean, I read the papers every day." "It wasn't in the papers, for the most part. We laid it all out, and we were trashed," Blum said. "I've got to tell you, there's a real problem with the press in this town. We were totally hit by the leadership of the administration and much of the congressional leadership. They simply turned around and said, These people are crazy. Their witnesses are full of shit. They're a bunch of drug dealers, drug addicts, don't listen to them. And they dumped all over us. It came from every direction and every corner. We were even dumped on by the Iran-Contra Committee. They wouldn't touch this issue with a ten-foot pole." "There had to have been some reporters who followed this," I protested. "Maybe I'm naive, but this seems like a huge story to me." Blum barked a laugh. "Well, it's nice to hear someone finally say that, even if it is ten years later. But what happened was, our credibility was questioned, and we were personally trashed. The administration and some people in Congress tried to make us look like crazies, and to some degree it worked. I remember having conversations with reporters in which they would say, Well, the administration says this is all wrong. And I'd say, Look, the guy is going to testify to X, Y, and Z. Why don't you cover the fucking hearing instead of coming to me with what the administration says? And they'd say, Well, the guy is a drug dealer. Why should I do that? And I used to say this regularly: Look, the minute I find a Lutheran minister or priest who was on the scene when they were delivering 600 kilos of cocaine at some air base in Contra-land, I'll put him on the stand, but until then, you take what you can get. The big papers stayed as far away from this issue as they could. It was like they didn't want to know." There were two reporters, Blum said, who'd pursued the Contra drug story, Robert Parry and Brian Barger of the Associated Press, but they'd run into the same problems. Their stories were either trashed or ignored. There were also two reporters in Costa Rica, a New York Times stringer named Martha Honey and her husband, Tony Avirgan, an ABC cameraman, who had gone after the story as well, he said. Honey and Avirgan wound up being set up on phony drug charges in Costa Rica, spied on in the States by the FBI and former CIA agents, smeared, and ruined financially. "I know Bob Parry is still here in Washington somewhere. He did the first stories and was one of the few who seemed to know what he was doing. You might want to talk to him," Blum suggested. Parry sounded slightly amused when I called him in Virginia. "Why in the world would you want to go back into this?" he asked. I told him of my discoveries about Meneses and Blandon, and the latter's cocaine sales in Los Angeles. I wondered if he or anyone else had ever reported this before. "Not that I'm aware of," Parry said. "We never really got into where it was going once the cocaine arrived in the United States. Our stories dealt mainly with the Costa Rican end of things. This is definitely a new angle. You think you can show it was being sold in L A?" "Yeah, I do. Well, one of the guys has even testified to it before a grand jury. But this is an area I've never done any reporting on before so I guess what I'm looking for is a little guidance," I told him. "Have you got any suggestions?" There was a short silence on the other end of the phone. "How well do you get along with your editors?" Parry finally asked. "Fine. Why do you ask?" "Well, when Brian and I were doing these stories we got our brains beat out." Parry sighed. "People from the administration were calling our editors, telling them we were crazy, that our sources were no good, that we didn't know what we were writing about. The Justice Department was putting out false press releases saying there was nothing to this, that they'd investigated and could find no evidence. We were being attacked in the Washington Times. The rest of the Washington press corps sort of pooh-poohed the whole thing, and no one else would touch it. So we ended up being out there all by ourselves, and eventually our editors backed away completely, and I ended up quitting the AP. It was probably the most difficult time of my career." He paused. "Maybe things have changed, I don't know." I was nonplussed. Bob Parry wasn't some fringe reporter. He'd won a Polk Award for uncovering the CIA assasination manual given to the Contras, and was the first reporter to expose Oliver North's illegal activities. But what he'd just described sounded like something out of a bad dream. I told him I didn't think that would be a problem at the Mercury. I'd done some controversial stories before, but the editors had stood by them, and we'd won some significant awards. I felt good about the paper, I told him. "One place you might try is the National Archives," Parry offered. "They're in the process of declassifying Lawrence Walsh's files, and I've found some pretty remarkable things over there. It's a long shot, but if I were you, I'd file a FOIA for the men you mentioned and see if anything turns up." It was a long shot, but Parry's hunch paid off. My Freedom of Information Act request produced several important clues, among them a 1986 FBI report about Blandon that alluded to a police raid and reported that Blandon's attorney, Brad Brunon, had called the L A County Sheriff's Office afterward and claimed that the CIA had "winked" at Blandon's activities. I also obtained 1987 FBI interviews with a San Francisco Contra supporter, Dennis Ainsworth, in which he told of his discovery that Norwin Meneses and a Contra leader named Enrique Bermudez were dealing arms and drugs. I tracked down Ainsworth and had another disconcerting conversation. You've got to be crazy, he said. He'd tried to alert people to this ten years ago, and it had ruined his life. "Nobody in Washington wanted to look at this. Republican, Democrat, nobody. They wanted this story buried and anyone who looked any deeper into it got buried along with it," Ainsworth said. "You're bringing up a very old nightmare. You have no idea what you're touching on here, Gary. No idea at all." "I think I've got a pretty good idea," I said. "Believe me," he said patiently, "you don't understand. I almost got killed. I had friends in Central America who were killed. There was a Mexican reporter who was looking into one end of this, and he wound up dead. So don't pretend that you know." "If the Contras were selling drugs in L A, don't you think people should know that?" Ainsworth laughed. "L A? Meneses was selling it all over the country! Listen, he ran one of the major distributions in the U-S It wasn't just L A He was national. And he was totally protected." "I think that's the kind of thing the public needs to know about," I told him. "And that's why I need your help. You know a lot more about this topic than I do." He was unmoved. "Look, when I was trying to tell Congress, I was getting death threats. And you're asking, you know, if I'm Jewish, would I like to go back and spend another six months in Dachau? Leave this alone. Take my advice. You can go on and write a lot of other things and maybe win a Pulitzer Prize, but all you're going to be after this is over is a persona non grata. Please. Everyone's forgotten about this and moved on with their lives." A few days later I got a call from Cornejo's girlfriend. My one chance to hook up with Blandon had just fallen through. "He isn't going to be testifying at Rafael's trial after all," she told me. "Rafael's attorney won his motion to have the DEA and FBI release the uncensored files, and the U-S attorney decided to drop him as a witness rather than do that. Can you believe it? He was one of the witnesses they used to get the indictment against Rafael, and now they're refusing to put him on the stand." I hung up the phone in a funk. Without him, I didn't have much to go on. But there was always his boss, this Meneses fellow. Getting to him was a tougher nut to crack, but worth a shot. The girlfriend said she thought he was in jail in Nicaragua, and the Chronicle clip I'd found noted that he'd been arrested there in 1991. Maybe, I hoped, the Nicaraguans locked their drug lords up longer than we did. I was put in touch with a freelance reporter in Managua, Georg Hodel, an indefatigable Swiss journalist who spoke several languages and had covered Nicaragua during the war. He taught college journalism classes, knew his way around the Nicaraguan government, and had sources everywhere. Better yet, with his Swiss-German-Spanish accent, it was like talking to Peter Lorre. I persuaded Dawn to hire Georg as a stringer, and he set off to find Meneses. Meanwhile, the San Diego attorney who had been out of town when I was looking for Blandon returned my call. Juanita Brooks had represented Blandon's friend and codefendant, a Mexican millionaire named Sergio Guerra. Another lawyer in her firm had defended Chepita Blandon. She knew quite a bit about the couple. "You don't happen to know where he is these days, do you?" "No, but I can tell you where he'll be in a couple of months. Here in San Diego. Entirely by coincidence, I have a case coming up where he's the chief prosecution witness against my client." "You're kidding," I said. "What case is this?" "It's a pretty big one. Have you ever heard of someone named Freeway Ricky Ross?" Indeed I had. I'd run across him while researching the asset forfeiture series in 1993. "He's one of the biggest crack dealers in L A," I said. "That's what they say," Brooks replied. "He and my client and a couple others were arrested in a DEA reverse sting last year and Blandon is the CI confidential informant in the case." "How did Blandon get involved with crack dealers?" "I don't have a lot of details, because the government has been very protective of him. They've refused to give us any discovery so far," Brooks said. "But from what I understand, Blandon used to be one of Ricky Ross's sources back in the nineteen eighties, and I suppose he played off that friendship." My mind was racing. Blandon, the Contra fund-raiser, had sold cocaine to the biggest crack dealer in South Central L A? That was too much. "Are you sure about this?" "I wouldn't want you to quote me on it," she said, "but, yes, I'm pretty sure. You can always call Alan Fenster, Ross's attorney, and ask him. I'm sure he knows." Fenster was out, so I left a message on his voice mail, telling him I was working on a story about Oscar Danilo Blandon Reyes and wanted to interview him. When I got back from lunch, I found a message from Fenster waiting. It said: "Oscar who?" My heart sank. I'd suspected it was a bum lead, but I'd been keeping my fingers crossed anyway. I should have known, that would have been too perfect. I called Fenster back to thank him for his time, and he asked what kind of a story I was working on. I told him, the Contras and cocaine. "I'm curious," he said. "What made you think this Oscar person was involved in Ricky's case?" I told him what Brooks had related, and he gasped. "He's the informant? Are you serious? No wonder those bastards won't give me his name!" Fenster began swearing a blue streak. "Forgive me," he said. "But if you only knew what kind of bullshit I've been going through to get that information from those sons of bitches, and then some reporter calls me up from San Jose and he knows all about him, it just makes me, " "Your client didn't tell you his name?" "He didn't know it! He only knew him as Danilo, and then he wasn't even sure that was his real name. You and Ricky need to talk. I'll have him call you." He hung up abruptly. Ross called a few hours later. I asked him what he knew about Blandon. "A lot," he said. "He was almost like a godfather to me. He's the one who got me going." "Was he your main source?" "He was. Everybody I knew, I knew through him. So really, he could be considered as my only source. In a sense, he was." "When was this?" "Eighty-one or 82. Right when I was getting going." Damn, I thought. That was right when Blandon said he started dealing drugs. "Would you be willing to sit down and talk to me about this?" I asked. "Hell, yeah. I'll tell you anything you want to know." At the end of September 1995 I spent a week in San Diego, going through the files of the Ross case, interviewing defense attorneys and prosecutors, listening to undercover DEA tapes. I attended a discovery hearing and watched as Fenster and the other defense lawyers made another futile attempt to find out details about the government's informant, so they could begin preparing their defenses. Assistant U-S Attorney O'Neale refused to provide a thing. They'd get what they were entitled to, he promised, ten days before trial. "See what I mean?" Fenster asked me on his way out. "It's like the trial in Alice in Wonderland." I spent hours with Ross at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. He knew nothing of Blandon's past, I discovered. He had no idea who the Contras were or whose side they were on. To him, Danilo was just a nice guy with a lot of cheap dope. "What would you say if I were to tell you that he was working for the Contras, selling cocaine to help them buy weapons and supplies?" I asked. Ross goggled. "And they put me in jail? I'd say that was some fuckedup shit there. They say I sold dope all over, but man, I know he done sold ten times more than me. Are you being straight with me?" I told him I had documents to prove it. Ross just shook his head and looked away. "He's been working for the government the whole damn time," he muttered. "A Pretty secret kind of thing" In July 1979, as his enemies massed in the hills and suburbs of his doomed capital, the dictator huddled in his mountainside bunker with his aides and his American advisers and cursed his rotten luck. For the forty-six years that Anastasio Somoza's family had ruled the Republic of Nicaragua, the Somozas had done nearly everything the U S government asked. No after all his hard work, the Americans wanted him to disappear. Somoza could barely believe it. He was glad he had his tape recorder going, so history could bear witness to his cruel betrayal. "I have thrown many people out of their natural habitat because of the U-S, fighting for your cause. So let's talk like friends," Somoza told U-S ambassador Lawrence Pezzullo. "I threw a goddamned Communist out of Guatemala," he reminded the ambassador, referring to the role the Somoza family had played in the CIAs overthrow of a liberal Guatemalan government in 1954. "I personally worked on that." When the CIA needed a secret base to prepare for the Bay of Pigs invasion, Somoza couldn't have been a more gracious host. "The U-S called me, and I agreed to have the bombers leave here and knock the hell out of the installations in Cuba," Somoza stormed, "like a Pearl Harbor deal." In 1965 he'd sent troops into the Dominican Republic to help the United States quell another leftist uprising. Hell, he'd even sent Nicaraguans off to fight in Vietnam. And now, when Somoza needed help, when it was his soldiers who were locked in a life-and-death struggle with Communist aggressors, the Americans were selling him out, all because of some nonsense about human rights violations by his troops. "It is embarrassing for you to be good friends with the Somozas," the dictator told Pezzullo sarcastically. Somoza then tried his trump card: If he went, the Nicaraguan National Guard, the Guardia, would surely be destroyed. The Guardia, as corrupt and deadly an organization as any in Central America, served as Somoza's military, his police, and his intelligence service. Somoza knew the Americans would be loath to let their investment in it go to waste. They had created the Guardia in the 1930s and nurtured it carefully since, spending millions of dollars a year supplying weapons and schooling its officers in the complex arts of anticommunism. "What are you going to do with the National Guard of Nicaragua?" Somoza asked Pezzullo. "I don't need to know, but after you have spent thirty years educating all of these officers, I don't think it is fair for them to be thrown to the wolves. They have been fighting Communism just like you taught them at Fort Gulick and Fort Benning and Leavenworth, out of nine hundred officers we have, eight hundred or so belong to your schools." Pezzullo assured Somoza that the United States was "willing to do what we can to preserve the Guard." Putting aside its international reputation for murder and torture, Pezzullo recognized that the Guardia was a bulwark against anti-American interests and, as long as it existed, could be used to keep Somoza's successors, whoever they might be, in line. "We are not abandoning the Guard," he insisted. "We would like to see a force emerge here that can stabilize the country." But for that to happen, Pezzullo said, Somoza and his top generals needed to step down and give the Guardia "a clean break" from its bloodstained past, before the Sandinistas marched in and it became too late to salvage anything. "To make the break now. It is a hell of a mess," Pezzullo said sympathetically. "Just sitting here talking to you about it is strange enough. We are talking about a break." Somoza knew the game was over. "Let's not bullshit ourselves, Mister Ambassador. I am talking to a professional. You have to do your dirty work, and I have to do mine." In the predawn hours of July 17, 1979, Somoza and his closest associates, his top generals, his business partners, and their families, boarded two jets and flew to Homestead Air Force Base in Florida to begin a vagabond exile. The vaunted National Guard collapsed within hours. Sandinista columns swarmed into the defenseless capital, jubilantly proclaiming an end to both the Guardia, which had hunted the rebels mercilessly for more than a decade, and Somoza. Those National Guard officers who could escape poured across the borders into El Salvador, Honduras, and Costa Rica, or hid inside the Colombian embassy in Managua. Those who couldn't, wound up in prison, and occasionally before firing squads. Nine days after Somoza and his cronies were overthrown, a handful of congressmen gathered in a hearing room in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D-C, to discuss some disturbing activities in Latin America. Though what had happened in Nicaragua was on everyone's mind in the nation's capital that week, these particular lawmakers had concerns that lay farther to the south: in Colombia, in Bolivia, and in Peru. They were worried about cocaine. The exotic South American drug seemed to be winning admirers everywhere. References were turning up in movies, songs and newspaper stories, and surprisingly, many of them were positive. To Republican congressman Tennyson Guyer, an elderly former preacher and thirty-third-degree Mason from Findlay, Ohio, it seemed like the media was hell-bent on glamorizing cocaine. Guyer, an ultraconservative fond of loud suits and white patent leather shoes, was the chairman of the Cocaine Task Force of the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, and he wasn't just going to stand by and watch. "Recent developments concerning the state of cocaine have come to my attention, which call for decisive and immediate action!" Guyer thundered as he opened his cocaine hearings in July 1979. "The availability, abuse, and popularity of cocaine in the United States has reached pandemic proportions. This is a drug which, for the most part, has been ignored, and its increased use in our society has caught us unprepared to cope effectively with this menace." But if Guyer was feeling menaced by cocaine, not too many others were. Many Americans who'd grown up during the drug-soaked nineteen sixties reasoned that an occasional sniff of the fluffy white powder was no more menacing than a couple of martinis, and considerably more chic. Cocaine didn't give you a hangover. It didn't scramble your brains. Many doctors believed you couldn't get hooked on it. It made you feel great. It kept the pounds off. And there was a definite cachet associated with using it. Just the price of admission to Club Cocaine was enough to keep out the riffraff. At 2,500 an ounce and up, it was a naughty pleasure reserved for a special few: the "so-called elites" and the "intellectual classes," as Guyer derisively termed them. Even the paraphernalia associated with the drug, sterling silver cocaine spoons and tightly rolled 100 bills, carried an aura of decadence. In the public's mind, cocaine was associated with fame and fortune. "The rediscovery of cocaine in the Seventies was unavoidable," a Los Angeles psychologist gushed to a convention of drug experts in 1980, "because its stimulating and pleasure-causing properties reinforce the American character, with its initiative, its energy, its restless activity and its boundless optimism." While the street corners played host to lowbrow and much more dangerous drugs, angel dust, smack, meth, coke stayed up in the penthouses, nestled in exquisitely carved bowls and glittering little boxes. It came out at private parties, or in the wash rooms of trendy nightclubs. Unless some celebrity got caught with it by accident, street cops almost never saw the stuff. "My first ten years as a narcotics agent, my contact with cocaine was very minimal," recalled Jerald Smith, who ran the San Francisco office of the California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement during the nineteen eighties. "As a matter of fact, the first few years, the only cocaine I ever saw was an ounce some guy would take around as a training aid to teach you what it looked like. Because it was something you saw so rarely. Our big things in those days were pills and heroin and marijuana." But if Reverend Guyer thought the experts he'd summoned to Washington were going to help him change the public's mind about cocaine sniffing, he was badly mistaken. Witness after witness trooped up to the microphone to tell Congress that cocaine was not only a relatively safe drug but so rare that it could hardly be called a nuisance, much less the "menace" Guyer was advertising. "Daily cocaine use is extremely uncommon, simply because of the high cost," testified Robert C Petersen, assistant director of research for the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "Under present conditions of use, it has not posed a very serious health problem for most. Rarely does it cause a problem." Lee I Dogoloff, the White House's drug expert, concurred. "It is our assumption," he said, "that the current relatively low level of health problems associated with cocaine use reflects the relatively high price and relatively low availability of the substance." To make the point, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Peter Bensinger, told the committee he had brought 800,000 dollars worth of cocaine to show them. He pulled out a little bag and dangled it before his rapt audience. "That is simulated, I trust?" Guyer inquired. "No, that is actual coca," Bensinger replied. A sample, he said, of seized contraband. "I can't believe you are holding almost 1 million there!" Guyer sputtered. "We ought to have security in the hearing room!" "We have some special agents in the room, I assure you," Bensinger said. The experts were careful to note that if cocaine became cheaper, it would be more widely available and might pose a bigger problem than anyone realized, but no one seemed to think there was much chance of that happening. Most of the smugglers, Bensinger said, were just bringing amounts small enough to put in a suitcase or stash on their body. "We don't think people are bringing cocaine across the border, to a large extent, in a car from Mexico." He recommended that Congress, instead of trying to prevent the drug from coming in over the borders, concentrate its efforts on getting the Peruvians and Bolivians to stop growing coca plants. Doctor Robert Byck, a drug expert from Yale University, sat in the audience listening patiently to the testimony all day. When it was Byck's turn to speak, Guyer warmly welcomed him up to the witness table, complimenting him on his "very, very impressive" academic and professional credentials. Byck thanked Guyer and then politely ripped into the federal government for spreading misinformation about the drug. "What I would like to talk to you about for the most part is the importance of telling the truth," Byck, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Yale Medical School, began. The truth was that cocaine wasn't the horrible health hazard Americans were being told it was. "Cocaine doesn't have the kind of health consequences that one sees with drugs such as alcohol and cigarettes. Right now, if we look at the hospital admission records and death records, cocaine doesn't look like a dangerous drug. We have given a great deal of cocaine to many individuals and find it to be a most unremarkable drug. We are giving cocaine by nose to normal young men. When anyone visits our laboratory, they look at the TV screen and say, That guy took cocaine? They don't jump around, they don't get excited, they sit calmly and experience a drug high and don't become dangerous." "What about five years later?" Guyer cried. "Are the membranes and so on not affected at all?" "The damage to people's membranes is quite rare with cocaine. It does occur, but it is a rare phenomenon," Byck answered. "Part of this is because people don't use very much cocaine. It is expensive. Tell me the last alcoholic you saw with cirrhosis of the liver when cirrhosis was caused by Dom Perignon. You almost never see it." As most Americans were using it, Byck said, co

Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html Source of Rahan Comics: Philippe Ropers. https://vk.com/topic-203785966_47424128 Rahan. Episode One hundred and eight. By Roger Lecureux, drawn by Andre Cheret. The Sacred Bird. The long arrow pierced the green chest of the "Quetzal". The son of Crao did not appreciate that a hunter, apparently without hunger, killed for pleasure. Why steal the life of the "Flame-Tail"? Because the sorcerer he belongs to is stealing my brother's! That is why Xica killed the sacred bird! The man explained how, despite the pleas of Ourgang, the sorcerer of his clan, slow death gnawed at his brother's body. Rahan despises sorcerers and their stupid incantations but killing that bird was a useless gesture! Why not take on Ourgang himself? Page Two. Ourgang is far too disrespectful of mine! They would kill me if I opposed him! As they would kill me if they knew that I had just shot down his sacred bird! Xica was pulling his arrow from the quetzal's body when shouts rang out. Here are mine, I am lost! Sacrilege! Xica killed the wonder bird! Hunters charged forward, lances raised. Stop! Xica is not guilty! Rahan is the one who killed the flame tail! Do not protest, Xica. Rahan is not one of yours, your clan may forgive him! Xica rightly accused Rahan of having committed this sacrilege, but Rahan is ignorant of the customs of this territory. He could not know that this "Tail-of-flames" was sacred! Page Three. In that case Rahan must follow us! Only the clan council can decide his fate! Saved by Rahan's lie, Xica embarrassedly avoided the gaze of the son of Crao. The clan's village was nearby. This hunter killed the "marvelous bird" Ourgang! We will judge him later! Ourgang has more serious things to do! The sorcerer was busy among his mixtures, next to the man who was moaning. After each of the drinks he gave the dying man, he invoked the spirits. Let life not abandon the body of the hunter! Come to aid Ourgang! All sorcerers are the same! It is not the supplications of Ourgang that will cure this unfortunate man! Rahan was right. As night fell, a rumor ran through the camp. The man had just died. Ourgang has lost his power! And he lost it because his marvelous bird died! Page Four. He who killed the sacred bird does not deserve to live another insane life! Men were brandishing their spears angrily, aiming at Rahan. No! Only the council can decide to kill this hunter! Let it meet immediately! A few men were heading towards the sorcerer's hut. Xica was among them. Rahan could save his life by coming back to the truth. But Xica would be the judge. But since Xica is on the council, Rahan will have a defender in him! The son of Crao was seriously mistaken. By killing the sacred bird Rahan took away your power, Ourgang! Because of him, my brother is no more and you can no longer do anything for the clan! Rahan must Die! Unaware that Xica, probably out of fear and cowardice, had been his fiercest accuser, Rahan saw a member of the council approach. Page Five. Only one of us asked for clemency. The sentence of the council is therefore, death! You will be executed at daybreak! Xica defended Rahan. Rahan was right not to denounce Xica! Xica will free him tonight! Once again the son of Crao was wrong. The shadow that crept toward the totem in the middle of the night was not that of Xica. Ourgang. He wants to avenge his Sacred Bird! He does not have the patience to wait for daybreak! The sorcerer approached, Rahan's ivory knife in his hand. And it was a surprise! Flee, "Fire-Hair"! Flee! For I no longer have the authority to prevent the clan from carrying out its verdict! Throwing the knife at the astonished Rahan's feet, Ourgang the sorcerer stealthily slipped away. Rahan is not dreaming! Page Six. Saved by a sorcerer! By a sorcerer! As he fled the village, the son of Crao repeated the same words to himself. This thought still haunted him when, exhausted by his race, he lay down on the fork of a large tree. The growl of a feline brought him back to reality. Rahan does not want to fight you over this shelter! He will find another one! Stay where you are! He did not have time to satiate the ivory knife. The jaguar had jumped. And hit the weapon, that fell to the ground, and knocking him over on the fork! He was going to have to fight the beast with his bare hands. Ra-ha-ha! Page Seven. It was a fierce hand-to-hand combat. If Rahan could push the fearsome fangs away from him, he could not dodge the claw blows. One of them made him fall under a branch. Another, plowing his hands, made him let go. And there was the fall! The foliage whirled above him. And he thought his skull was bursting like a wild berry. And that his vertebrae were dislocating. Everything became blurry around and above him. The trees. The foliage. And the jaguar gathering itself to dive at him. Rahan is lost. He. He will no longer have the strength to resist the Jagha! Page Eight. Lying on his back, he tried in vain to straighten up and everything became even more blurred. And then his fingers felt the ivory knife. The jaguar that had just leapt was nothing more than an imprecise shape. As imprecise as the weapon he was gripping with both hands. The shock was very harsh when the beast impaled itself on the ivory blade! It was the last that the son of Crao felt. He did not even feel the weight of the stricken feline on him. He had lost consciousness. When he came to, the beast's body had disappeared. But his first instinct was to prepare to continue a fight he did not know was over. Page Nine. What are you looking for, "Fire-Hair"? This cutlass? Ourgang! A few steps away, Ourgang the sorcerer offered him the ivory weapon. I found it in the chest of the "Jagha" you killed three nights ago! Three nights!? Yes Rahan. It has been three days and three nights since I found you in a clearing! You were covered in wounds and I knew you would suffer a lot before they healed. That was why I made you drink the "Long-Sleep Brew," which would allow me to heal you without pain! I am glad I succeeded! The son of Crao could see that only a few scars remained on his body, thin and painless. This is the second time you come to Rahan's aid! What a strange sorcerer are you, Ourgang?! And why are you here, far from your clan? Page Ten. Xica guessed that I had freed you and the council chased me from the clan. But maybe it is better this way. Since the death of the sacred bird, my people have withdrawn their trust in me! But I will probably find another clan to which I could be useful. Ourgang's face remained disturbed. But his gaze was strangely gentle and thoughtful. He recounted how, throughout his life, he had patiently uncovered the secret of healing plants and saved countless hunters. So it is not the sacred bird that gives you your power. Your power is your knowledge! Who knows? One of these flame-tailed birds flew over the village the day I cured the first hunter! The whole clan saw a sign there and began to worship the marvelous bird! Rahan understands! But he does not understand why you violated the council's decision by freeing him. Page Eleven. Because I failed to convince the council that you had not committed sacrilege. Since you did not know that "The Wonder Bird" was sacred to us! So you were the only council member who defended Rahan? Yes! And I made the decision to free you when Xica spoke of torturing you before putting you to death! What are you saying? Xica! Xica!? But it is impossible! Xica did not want Rahan's death! Rahan who lied to save him! Because you must know the truth, Ourgang! It was not Rahan who killed the sacred bird. It was Xica! This unexpected revelation made the wizard turn pale. His fists clenched. Then everything is explained, “Hair of Fire"! Everything becomes clear. Xica has always wanted to lead the clan and is jealous of my authority! When I told him that it would be impossible for me to cure his brother, this diabolical idea of killing the sacred bird came to him. The death of the bird would explain that of his brother. And the loss of my power! The plan of the deceitful Xica has succeeded perfectly. Page Twelve. No, Ourgang! Let us go back to your people! Rahan will tell the clan that it was Xica who killed the flame-tailed bird! Xica will kill you before you reveal the truth! Oh! Look! This is the only thing that could convince the clan. Ourgang pointed out a marvelous quetzal perched on a high branch. Rahan understands! He will capture this "Flame-Tail"! Rahan is a fool. No one has ever caught one of these birds alive! The one I had managed to train had been found very young, barely flying! The son of Crao was already jumping into the branches and Ourgang witnessed the most extraordinary of pursuits. Twenty times Rahan almost caught the quetzal. But twenty times the long scarlet tail escaped him. Page thirteen. Rahan is too presumptuous! He needs wings and. Oh! What. What. His hands clung to the sticky bark of a particularly resinous tree. The blood of trees! Rahan should have thought of this trap of the bird hunters! What does your bird eat, Ourgang! A moment later, Rahan was scooping berries into the thick resin, that Ourgang claimed all quetzals were very fond of. And it was a very long wait. The quetzal flew from one tree to another, sometimes whirled around the trap, then moved away from it. And finally landed there. And there, Rahan's victory cry thundered. Ra-ha-ha! You succeeded, “Hair of Fire”! Capturing the bird that could not free its resin-stuck legs was now just a game. Page Fourteen. A great clamor arose when, at dawn the following day, the son of Crao and Ourgang the sorcerer came within sight of the village. Ourgang has brought back a "Wonder Bird"! Ouragan has regained his power! Do not forget that Ourgang helped the one who killed "The Sacred Bird" escape! They both must die! Fearing that the truth would come out, Xica was already rushing towards the two men. He did not know the son of Crao. Get out of the way, Ourgang! Rahan is used to these assaults! Rahan stood immobilized, letting himself be charged with astonishing composure. He only jerked aside for a split second before the spear could pierce his chest. The two-noses charge as stupidly as Xica! But they are less light than him! Argh! Page Fifteen. Xica found himself on the ground, under the tip of the spear. And now it is high time for the deceitful Xica to reveal to the clan who really killed the Sacred Bird or else! It is useless, Rahan! I just revealed the truth to the council! The council believes me and gives you the right to put Xica to death, if you want! Rahan never steals the life of "Those-who-walk-upright"! May Xica the deceiver be banished from the clan! So it will be done brother! And so it was done. And to think that you had only risked your life to protect it from this coward! This generosity has not brought you much! You are wrong, Ourgang! I have discovered something very important! Rahan did not dare to admit that he had discovered, during this adventure, that good sorcerers could exist. And if he stayed among the clan of the sacred bird, it is because he had much to learn from Ourgang, this strange sorcerer, this sorcerer like no other.

The Song of Igor's Campaign, Igor son of Svyatoslav and grandson of Oleg. Translated by Vladimir Nabokov. Exordium. Might it not become us brothers, to begin in the diction of yore, the stern tale, of the campaign of Igor, Igor son of Svyatoslav? Let us, however, begin this song in keeping with the happenings of these times, and not with the contriving of Boyan. For he, vatic Boyan if he wished to make a laud for one, ranged in thought like the nightingale over the tree, like the gray wolf across land, like the smoky eagle up to the clouds. For as he recalled, said he, the feuds of initial times, "He set ten falcons upon a flock of swans, and the one first overtaken, sang a song first," to Yaroslav of yore, and to brave Mstislav who slew Rededya before the Kasog troops, and to fair Roman son of Svyatoslav. To be sure, brothers, Boyan did not really set ten falcons upon a flock of swans: his own vatic fingers he laid on the live strings, which then twanged out by themselves a paean to princes. So let us begin, brothers, this tale from Vladimir of yore to nowadays Igor. who girded his mind with fortitude, and sharpened his heart with manliness, thus imbued with the spirit of arms, he led his brave troops against the Kuman land in the name of the Russian land. Boyan apostrophized. O Boyan, nightingale of the times of old! If you were to trill your praise of these troops, while hopping, nightingale, over the tree of thought, if you were flying in mind up to the clouds, if weaving paeans around these times, you were roving the Troyan Trail, across fields onto hills, then the song to be sung of Igor, that grandson of Oleg, would be: "No storm has swept falcons across wide fields, flocks of daws flee toward the Great Don", or you might intone thus, vatic Boyan, grandson of Veles: "Steeds neigh beyond the Sula, glory rings in Kiev, trumpets blare in Novgorod Seversk, banners are raised in Putivl." Vsievolod's speech. Igor waits for his dear brother Vsevolod. And Wild Bull Vsevolod arrives and says to him: "My one brother, one bright brightness, you Igor! We both are Svyatoslav's sons. Saddle, brother, your swift steeds. As to mine, they are ready, saddled ahead, near Kursk, as to my Kurskers, they are famous knights swaddled under war horns, nursed under helmets, fed from the point of the lance, to them the trails are familiar, to them the ravines are known, the bows they have are strung tight, the quivers, unclosed, the sabers, sharpened, themselves, like gray wolves, they lope in the field, seeking for themselves honor, and for their prince glory." The Eclipse and Igor's speech. Then Igor glanced up at the bright sun and saw, that from it with darkness his warriors were covered. And Igor says to his Guards: "Brothers and Guards! It is better indeed to be slain than to be enslaved, so let us mount, brothers, upon our swift steeds, and take a look at the blue Don." A longing consumed the prince's mind, and the omen was screened from him by the urge to taste of the Great Don: "For I wish," he said, "to break a lance on the limit of the Kuman field, with you, sons of Rus, I wish either to lay down my head or drink a helmetful of the Don." Igor sets out, accumulation of omens. Then Igor set foot in the golden stirrup and rode out in the Champaign. The sun blocks his way with darkness. Night, moaning ominously unto him, awakens the birds, the whistling of beasts arises? stirring? the daeva calls on the top of a tree, bids hearken the land unknown the Volga, and the Azov Seaboard, and the Sula country, and Surozh, and Korsun, and you, idol of Tmutorokan! Meanwhile by untrodden roads the Kumans make for the Great Don, their wagons screak in the middle of night, one might say dispersed swans. Igor rides on. Igor leads Donward his warriors. His misfortunes already are forefelt by the birds in the oakscrub. The wolves, in the ravines, conjure the storm. The erns with their squalling summon the beasts to the bones. The foxes yelp at the vermilion shields. O Russian land, you are already behind the culmen! Long does the night keep darkling. Dawn sheds its light. Mist has covered the fields. Stilled is the trilling of nightingales, the jargon of jackdaws has woken. With their vermilion shields the sons of Rus have barred the Great prairie, seeking for themselves honor, and for their prince glory. The first engagement. Early on Friday they trampled the pagan Kuman Troops and fanned out like arrows over the field, they bore off fair Kuman maidens and, with them gold, and brocades, and precious samites. By means of caparisons, and mantlets, and furred cloaks of leather they started making plankings to plank marshes, and miry spots with all kinds of Kuman weaves. A vermilion standard, a white gonfalon, a vermilion penant of dyed horsehair and a silver hilt went to Igor son of Svyatoslav. Night, and dawn of Saturday. In the field slumbers Oleg's brave aerie: far has it flown! Not born was it to be wronged either by falcon or hawk, or by you, black raven, pagan Kuman! Gzak runs like a gray wolf, Konchak lays out a track for him to the Great Don. On the next day very early bloody effulgences herald the light. Black clouds come from the sea: They want to cover the four suns, and in them throb blue lightnings. There is to be great thunder, there is to come rain in the guise of arrows from the Great Don. Saturday: the Kumans counter attack. Here lances shall break, here sabers shall blunt against Kuman helmets on the river Kayala by the Great Don. O Russian land, you are already behind the culmen! Now the winds, Stribog's grandsons, in the guise of arrows waft from the sea, against the brave troops of Igor! The earth rumbles, the rivers run sludgily, dust covers the fields. The banners speak: "The Kumans are coming from the Don and from the sea and from all sides!" The Russian troops retreat. The Fiend's children bar the field with their war cries, the brave sons of Rus bar it with their vermilion shields. Vsevolod in battle. Fierce Bull Vsevolod! You stand your ground, you spurt arrows at warriors, you clang on helmets with swords of steel. Wherever the Bull bounds, darting light from his golden helmet, there lie pagan Kuman heads: cleft with tempered sabers are their Avar helmets by you, Fierce Bull Vsevolod! What wound, brothers, can matter to one who has forgotten honors and life, and the town of Chernigov golden throne of his fathers and of his dear beloved, Gleb's fair daughter, the wonts and ways! Recollections of Oleg's feuds. There have been the ages of Troyan, gone are the years of Yaroslav, there have been the campaigns of Oleg, Oleg son of Svyatoslav. That Oleg forged feuds with the sword, and sowed the land with arrows. He sets foot in the golden stirrup in the town of Tmutorokan: a similar clinking had been hearkened by the great Yaroslav of long ago, and Vladimir son of Vsevolod every morn that he heard it stopped his ears in Chernigov. As to Boris son of Vyacheslav, vainglory brought him to judgment and on the Kanin river spread out a green pall, for the offense against Oleg, the brave young prince. And from that Kayala Svyatopolk had his father conveyed, cradled between Hungarian pacers tandemwise to Saint Sophia in Kiev. Then, under Oleg, child of Malglory, sown were and sprouted discords, perished the livelihood of Dazhbog's grandson among princely feuds, human ages dwindled. Then, across the Russian land, seldom did plowmen shout hup hup to their horses, but often did ravens croak, as they divided among themselves the cadavers, while jackdaws announced in their own jargon, that they were about to fly to the feed. Thus it was in those combats and in those campaigns, but such a battle had never been heard of. Termination of battle. From early morn to eve, and from eve to dawn, tempered arrows fly, sabers resound against helmets, steel lances crack. In the field unknown, midst the Kuman land, the black sod under hooves was sown with bones and irrigated with gore. As grief they came up throughout the Russian land. What dins unto me, what rings unto me? Early today, before the effulgences, Igor turns back his troops: he is anxious about his dear brother Vsevolod. They fought one day, they fought another, on the third, toward noon, Igor's banners fell. Defeat and Lamentations. Here the brothers parted on the bank of the swift Kayala. Here was a want of blood wine, here the brave sons of Rus finished the feast got their in laws drunk, and themselves lay down In defense of the Russian land. The grass droops with condolements and the tree with sorrow bends to the ground. For now, brothers, a cheerless tide has set in, now the wild has covered the strong, Wrong has risen among the forces of Dazhbog's grandson, in the guise of a maiden Wrong has stepped into Troyan's land, she clapped her swan wings on the blue sea by the Don, and clapping, decreased rich times. The strife of the princes against the pagans has come to an end, for brother says to brother: "This is mine, and that is mine too," and the princes have begun to say of what is small: "This is big," while against their own selves they forge discord, and while from all sides with victories the pagans enter the Russian land. O, far has the falcon gone, Slaying birds: to the sea! But Igor's brave troops cannot be brought back to life. In their wake the Keener has wailed, and Lamentation has overrun the Russian land, shaking the embers in the inglehorn. The Russian women have started to weep, repeating "Henceforth our dear husbands cannot be thought of by our thinking, nor mused about by our musing, nor beheld with our eyes, as to gold and silver none at all shall we touch!" And, brothers, Kiev groaned in sorrow, and so did Chernigov in adversity, anguish spread flowing over the Russian land, abundant woe made its way midst the Russian land, while the princes forged discord against their own selves, and while the pagans, with victories prowling over the Russian land, took tribute of one vair from every homestead. Victories of Svyatoslav the third recalled. All because the two brave sons of Svyatoslav, Igor and Vsevolod, stirred up the virulence that had been all but curbed by their senior, dread Svyatoslav, the Great Prince of Kiev, who kept the Kumans in dread. He beat down the Kumans With his mighty troops and steel swords, invaded the Kuman land, leveled underfoot hills and ravines, muddied rivers and lakes, drained torrents and marshes, and the pagan Kobyaka, out of the Bight of the Sea, from among the great iron Kuman troops, he plucked like a tornado, and Kobyaka dropped in the town of Kiev, in the guard room of Svyatoslav! Igor blamed. Now the Germans, and the Venetians, now the Greeks, and the Moravians sing glory to Svyatoslavm, but chide Prince Igor, for he let abundance sink to the bottom of the Kayala, and filled up Kuman rivers with Russian gold. Now Igor the prince has switched from a saddle of gold to a thrall's saddle. Pined away have the ramparts of towns, and merriment has dropped. Svyatoslav's dream. And Svyatoslav saw a troubled Dream in Kiev upon the hills: "This night, from eventide, they dressed me, "he said, "with a black pall on a bedstead of yew. They ladled out for me blue wine mixed with bane. From the empty quivers of pagan tulks they rolled great pearls onto my breast, and caressed me. Already the traves lacked the master girder in my gold crested tower! All night, from eventide, demon ravens croaked. On the outskirts of Plesensk there was a logging sleigh, and it was carried to the blue sea!" The Boyars explain their sovereign's dream. And the boyars said to the Prince: "Already, Prince, grief has enthralled the mind, for indeed two falcons have flown off the golden paternal, throne in quest of the town of Tmutorokan, or at least to drink a helmetful of the Don. Already the falcons' winglets have been clipped by the pagans' sabers, and the birds themselves entangled in iron meshes." Indeed, dark it was on the third day of battle: two suns were murked, both crimson pillars were extinguished, and with them both young moons, Oleg and Svyatoslav, were veiled with darkness and sank in the sea. "On the river Kayala darkness has covered the light. Over the Russian land the Kumans have spread, like a brood of pards, and great turbulence imparted to the Hin. "Already disgrace has come down upon glory. Already thralldom has crashed down upon freedom. Already the daeva has swooped down upon the land. And lo! Gothic fair maids have burst into song on the shore of the blue sea: chinking Russian gold, they sing demon times, they lilt vengeance for Sharokan, and already we, your Guards, hanker after mirth." Svyatoslav's speech. Then the great Svyatoslav let fall a golden word mingled with tears, and he said: "O my juniors, Igor and Vsevolod! Early did you begin to worry with swords the Kuman land, and seek personal glory, but not honorably you triumphed for not honorably you shed pagan blood. Your brave hearts are forged of hard steel and proven in turbulence, but what is this you have done to my silver hoarness! "Nor do I see any longer the sway of my strong, and wealthy, and multimilitant brother Yaroslav with his Chernigov boyars, with his Moguts, and Tatrans, and Shelbirs, and Topchaks, and Revugs, and Olbers, for they without bucklers, with knives in the legs of their boots, vanquish armies with war cries, to the ringing of ancestral glory. "But you said: Let us be heroes on our own, let us by ourselves grasp the anterior glory and by ourselves share the posterior one. Now is it so wonderful, brothers, for an old man to grow young? When a falcon has moulted, he drives birds on high: he does not allow any harm to befall his nest, but here is the trouble: princes are of no help to me." The Author apostrophizes contemporaneous princes. Inside out have the times turned. Now in Rim people scream under Kuman sabers, and Volodimir screams under wounding blows. Woe and anguish to you, Volodimir son of Gleb! Great prince Vsevolod! Do you not think of flying here from afar to safeguard the paternal golden throne? For you can with your oars scatter in drops the Volga, and with your helmets scoop dry the Don. If you were here, a female slave would fetch one nogata, and a male slave, one rezana, for you can shoot on land live bolts these are the bold sons of Gleb! You turbulent Rurik, and you David! Were not your men's gilt helmet afloat on blood? Do not your brave knights roar like bulls wounded by tempered sabers in the field unknown? Set your feet, my lords, in your stirrups of gold to avenge the wrong of our time, the Russian land, and the wounds of Igor, turbulent son of Svyatoslav. Eight minded Yaroslav of Galich! You sit high on your gold forged throne, you have braced the Hungarian mountains with your iron troops, you have barred the Hungarian king's path, you have closed the Danube's gates, hurling weighty missiles over the clouds, spreading your courts to the Danube. Your thunders range over lands, you open Kiev's gates, from the paternal golden throne you shoot at sultans beyond the lands. Shoot your arrows, lord, at Konchak, the pagan slave, to avenge the Russian land, and the wounds of Igor, turbulent son of Svyatoslav! And you, turbulent Roman, and Mstislav! A brave thought carries your minds to deeds. On high you soar to deeds in your turbulence, like the falcon that rides the winds as he strives in turbulence to overcome the bird. For you have iron breastplates under Latin helmets, these have made the earth rumble, and many nations Hins, Lithuanians, Yatvangians, Dermners, and Kumans have dropped their spears, and bowed their heads beneath those steel swords. But already, O Prince Igor, the sunlight has dimmed, and, not goodly, the tree sheds its foliage. Along the Ros and the Sula the towns have been distributed, and Igor's brave troops cannot be brought back to life! The Don, Prince, calls you, and summons the princes to victory. The brave princes, descendants of Oleg, have hastened to fight. Ingvar and Vsevolod, and all three sons of Mstislav, six winged hawks? of no mean brood! Not by victorious sorts did you grasp your patrimonies. Where, then, are your golden helmets, and Polish spears, and shields? Bar the gates of the prairie with your sharp arrows to avenge the Russian land and the wounds of Igor, turbulent son of Svyatoslav. No longer indeed does the Sula flow in silvery streams, for the defense of the town of Pereyaslavl, and the Dvina, too, flows marsh like for the erstwhile dreaded townsmen of Polotsk to the war cries of pagans. Izyaslav recalled. Alone Izyaslav son of Vasilko made his sharp swords ring against Lithuanian helmets, only to cut down the glory of his grandsire Vseslav, and himself he was cut down by Lithuanian swords under his vermilion shields, and fell on the gory grass as if? with a beloved one upon a bed. And Boyan said: "Your Guards, Prince, birds have hooded with their wings and beasts have licked up their blood:” Neither your brother Bryachislav nor your other one Vsevolod was there, thus all alone you let your pearly soul drop out of your brave body through your golden gorget. Conclusion of Apostrophe. Despondent are the voices, Drooped has merriment, only? Blare the town trumpets. Yaroslav, and all the descendants of Vseslav! The time has come to lower your banners, to sheathe your dented swords. For you have already departed from the ancestral glory, for with your feuds you started to draw the pagans onto the Russian land, onto the livelihood of Vseslav. Indeed, because of those quarrels violence came from the Kuman land. Vseslav's fate recalled. In the seventh age of Troyan, Vseslav cast lots for the damsel he wooed. By subterfuge, propping himself upon mounted troops, he vaulted toward the town of Kiev and touched with the staff of his lance the Kievan golden throne. Like a fierce beast he leapt away from them the troops? at midnight, out of Belgorod, having enveloped himself in a blue mist. Then at morn, he drove in his battle axes, opened the gates of Novgorod, shattered the glory of Yaroslav, and loped like a wolf to the Nemiga from Dudutki. On the Nemiga the spread sheaves are heads, the flails that thresh are of steel, lives are laid out on the threshing floor, souls are winnowed from bodies. Nemiga's gory banks are not sowed goodly sown with the bones of Russia's sons. Vseslav the prince judged men, as prince, he ruled towns, but at night he prowled in the guise of a wolf. From Kiev, prowling, he reached, before the cocks crew, Tmutorokan. The path of Great Hors, as a wolf, prowling, he crossed. For him in Polotsk they rang for matins early at Saint Sophia the bells, but he heard the ringing in Kiev. Although, indeed, he had a vatic soul in a doughty body, he often suffered calamities. Of him vatic Boyan once said, with sense, in the tag: "Neither the guileful nor the skillful, neither bird nor bard, can escape God's judgment." Alas! The Russian land shall moan recalling her first years and first princes! Vladimir of yore, he, could not be nailed to the Kievan hills. Now some of his banners have gone to Rurik and others to David, but their plumes wave in counterturn. Lances hum on the Dunay. The voice of Yaroslav's daughter is heard, like a cuckoo, unto the field? unknown, early she calls. Yaroslavna's incantation. "I will fly, like a cuckoo," she says, "down the Dunay. I will dip my beaver sleeve in the river Kayala. I will wipe the bleeding wounds on the prince's hardy body." Yaroslav's daughter early weeps, in Putivl on the rampart, repeating: "Wind, Great Wind! Why, lord, blow perversely? Why carry those Hinish dartlets on your light winglets against my husband's warriors? Are you not satisfied to blow on high, up to the clouds, rocking the ships upon the blue sea? Why, lord, have you dispersed my gladness all over the feather grass?" Yaroslav's daughter early weeps, in Putivl on the rampart, repeating: "O Dnepr, famed one! You have pierced stone hills through the Kuman land. You have lolled upon you Svyatoslav's galleys as far as Kobyaka's camp. Loll up to me, lord, my husband that I may not send my tears seaward thus early." Yaroslav's daughter early weeps, in Putivl on the rampart, repeating: "Bright and thrice bright Sun! To all you are warm and comely, Why spread, lord, your scorching rays on my husband's warriors, why in the waterless field parch their bows with thirst, close their quivers with anguish?" Igor's escape. The sea plashed at midnight, waterspouts advance in mists, God? points out to Igor the way from the Kuman land to the Russian land, to the paternal golden throne. The evening glow has faded: Igor sleeps, Igor keeps vigil, Igor in thought measures the plains from the Great Don to the Little Donets, bringing a horse at midnight, Ovlur whistled beyond the river: he bids Igor heed Igor is not to be held in bondage. Ovlur called, the earth rumbled, the grass swished, the Kuman tents stirred. Meanwhile, like an ermine, Igor has sped to the reeds, and settled upon the water like a white duck. He leaped upon the swift steed, and sprang off it, and ran on, like a demon wolf, and sped to the meadowland of the Donets, and, like a falcon, flew up to the mists, killing geese and swans, for lunch, and for dinner, and for supper. And even as Igor, like a falcon, flew, Vlur, like a wolf, sped, shaking off by his passage the cold dew, for both had worn out their swift steeds. Says the Donets: "Prince Igor! Not small is your magnification, and Konchak's detestation, and the Russian land's gladness." Igor says: "O Donets! Not small is your magnification: you it was who lolled a prince on your waves, who carpeted for him with green grass your silver banks, who clothed him with warm mists under the shelter of the green tree, who had him guarded by the golden eye on the water, the gulls on the currents, the crested black ducks on the winds. Not like that," says Igor, "is the river Stugna: endowed with a meager stream, having fed therefore on alien rills and runners, she rent between bushes a youth, prince Rostislav, imprisoning him. On the Dnepr's dark bank Rostislav's mother weeps the youth. Pined away have the flowers with condolement, and the tree has been bent to the ground with sorrow." No chattering magpies are these: on Igor's trail Gzak and Konchak come riding. Then the ravens did not caw, the grackles were still, the real magpies did not chatter, only the woodpeckers, in the osiers climbing, with taps marked for Igor the way to the river. The nightingales with gay songs announce the dawn. Says Gzak to Konchak: "Since the falcon to his nest is flying, let us shoot dead the falcon's son with our gilded arrows." Says Konchak to Gza sic: "Since the falcon to his nest is flying why, let us entoil the falconet by means of a fair maiden." And says Gzak to Konchak: "if we entoil him by means of a fair maiden, neither the falconet, nor the fair maiden, shall we have, while the birds will start to beat us in the Kuman field." Igor's return. Said Boyan, song maker of the times of old, of the campaigns of the kogans Svyatoslav, Yaroslav, Oleg: "Hard as it is for the head to be without shoulders bad it is for the body to be without head," for the Russian land to be without Igor. The sun shines in the sky: Prince Igor is on Russian soil. Maidens sing on the Danube, their voices weave across the sea to Kiev. Igor rides up the Borichev slope to the Blessed Virgin of the Tower, countries rejoice, cities are merry. Conclusion. After singing a song to the old princes one must then sing to the young: Glory to Igor son of Svyatoslav, to Wild Bull Vsevolod, to Vladimir son of Igor! Hail, princes and knights fighting for the Christians against the pagan troops! To the princes glory, and to the knights glory. Amen.

The ship of fools. Translated by Alexander Barclay. Reformatted and stripped of its Hawk Tuahs, for Machine Speech, PukeOnAPlate 2024. The ship of fools. Coat of Arms of the printer, Richard Pynson. To the most venerable in Christ the Father and the Lord: to Sir Thomas Cornish, the Pontiff of Tenen and the most vigilant Suffragan of the Diocese of Baden, the humble Chaplain of his fatherhood, Alexander Barclay, recommends himself with all submission, and reverence. Although I was fatigued by frequent business and various kinds of impediments, I was withdrawn from my study a little longer than I had wished. However, most observantly the prince: I have at last acquitted the stupid fleet, as I promised to your father, and sent it to you in print. Nor, however, would I have laid certain labor on my shoulders for an uncertain first humans, unless Seruianus had warned me of that saying, I had begun long before. It is better not to start than to leave a project less than perfect. After completing the work, I did not consider anyone more worthy than your fatherhood to whom I would dedicate it, both because of your soundness of prudence, dignity of manners, sanctity of life, and perseverance in doctrine: the wandering fools of the Mumdans from allurements to the paths of virtue, although difficult, may be able to bring them back, and truly, because exalted and promoted to the sacred orders by you, and enriched by many other benefits of yours, I could not but restrict my obedience to you. I therefore dedicated the work to your fatherhood: the beginnings of my labors which have burst into the light. I confess that I have added much more than I have taken away: partly because of the vices which spring up more abundantly in this part of our country, to be picked more bitingly, and partly because of the difficulty of the rhythm. I have also added some concordances of the Bible and other authors, marked in the margin, so that each detail will be more clear to the readers: At the same time to make peace with the barking dogs of the envious: and stop the rabid mouth: let them hear the rebuke of what they are doing, where they are spreading. Straight away, they had torn up what had been said and what had been written. They rehearse songs worthy of mackerel and incense: but if they continue to curse: like foolish counts, they attack the fleet. But you, as a venerable Presul, a small gift to your disciple: I accept with a cheerful face, and our class, if there is anything vague, if there is any error: if there is anything superfluous: interpreting the best part: from the mouths of the unsuspecting: you will protect it with the clip of your authority. Farewell. Pynson. This present book named the ship of follies of the world was translated in the College of saint Mary Otery in the county of Devonshire: out of Latin, French, and Dutch into English tongue by Alexander Barclay Preste: and at that time Chaplin in the said College. Translated the year of our Lord God. Fifteen Oh Eight. Imprinted in the City of London in Fleet street at the signe of saint George. By Rychard Pynson to his Cost and charge: Ended the year of our Saviour. Fifteen Oh Nine. The fourteenth day of December. TABULA. The register or table of this present book in English. Volume one. Alexander Barclay excuses the rudeness of his translation, yet first let Barclay the translator to the follies. A prolog in prose showing to what intent this book was first made, and who were the first Authors of it. Another Prolog, in Ballad concerning the same. In what place this book was translated and to what purpose it was translated. Here beginneth the Follies and first of unprofitable books. Of all Counselors, Judges and men of law. Of covetous and prodigality. Of new disguisings in apparel. A lord of the nobles and great of King Henry the eighth. Of old Follies increasing folly with age. Of negligent Fathers against their Children. Of tail bearers and movers of debate. Of not followers of good counsel. Of ungoodly manners, and disordered. Of the hurting of friendship. Of despisers of Holy Scripture. Of follies imprudent. Of disordered and venerous love. Of them that sin trusting upon the mercy of almighty god. Of follies it begin great building without sufficient provision. Of gluttons, and drunkards. Of riches unprofitable. Of follies that will serve two lords both together. Of superfluous speech. Of them that correct other, them self culpable in the same fault. Of follies that find others good, not restoring the same to the owner. The sermon or doctrine of wisdom. Of Follies boasting them in fortune. Of the superfluous curiosity of men. Of great borrowers, and slack payers. Of unprofitable vowers and petitions. Of negligent studiers. Of them that foolishly speak against the works of god. Of lewd Judges of others deeds. Of pluralities of benefices. Of sinners that prolong from day to day to amend their misslying. Of men that are jealous. Of adultery, and especially of such as are bawds to their wives. Of such as needs will continue in their folly not withstanding wholesome erudition. An addition of the secundaries of Otery saint Mary, in Devonshire. Of wrathful follies. Of the mutability of fortune. Of seekers men inobedient. Of to open councilors. Of follies that cannot be ware by the misfortune nor take example of others damage. Of follies that force or care for the back-bitingage of lewd people. Of mockers and false accusers. Of them that despise everlasting bliss for worldly things and transitory. Of talkers and makers of noise in the Church of god. Of follies that put them self in willful jeopardy and peril. Of the way of felicity, and godness and the pain to come to sinners. Of old follies it give example of vice to youth negligent and inexpert. Of bodily lust or corporal voluptuosity. Of follies that cannot keep secret their own counsel. Of young follies that take old women to their wives not for love but for riches. Of envious Follies. Of impatient follies disdaining to abide and suffer correction, for their profit. Of foolish Physicians using their practice without speculation. Of the end of worldly honor and power and of follies it trust in them. An addition of Alexander Barclay. Of predestination. Of follies that apply other mens business leaving their own undone. Of the vice of ingratitude or unkindness and follies that use it. Of Follies that stand to mock in their own conceit. Of follies that delight them in dancing. Of night watchers. Of the vanity of beggars. The ship of fools. Alexander Barclay excusing the rudeness of his translation. Go Book, abash thee thy rudeness to present. To men advanced to worship, and honour. By birth or fortune: or to men eloquent. By thy submission excuse thy Translator. But when I remember the common behavior, Of men: I think thou ought to quake for fear, Of tongues envious whose venom may the dear. Tremble, fear, and quake, thou ought I say again. For to the Reader thou showest by evidence. Thy self of rhetoric private and barren. In speech superfluous: and fruitless of sentence. Thou plainly blamest without all difference. Both high and low sparing each man’s name. Therefore no malice though many do the blame. But if thou fortune to lie before a State. As King or Prince or lords great or small. Or doctor divine or other Graduate. Be this thy Excuse to content their mind withal. My speech is rude my terms common and rural. And I for rude people mock more convenient. Than for Estates, learned men, or eloquent. But of this one point thou needest not to fear. That any good man, virtuous and Just. With his ill speech shall thee hurt or dear. But thee defend. As I suppose and trust. But such Un-thrifts as sue their carnal lust. Whom thou for vice dost sharply rebuke and blame. Shall the dis-praise, imperishing thy name. An exhortation of Alexander Barclay. But you that shall read this book, I you exhort. And you that are hearers there of also I pray. Where as you know that you be of this sort: Amend your life and expel that vice away. Slumber not in sin. Amend you while you may. And if you so do and ensue Virtue and grace. Within my ship you get no room, no place. Barclay the translator to the Fools. To ship gallants the sea is at the full. The wind us calleth our sails are displayed. Where may we best argue? At Lyn or else at Hull? To us may no haven in England be denied. Why tarry we? The Anchors are up weighed. If any cord or Cable us hurt, let other hinder. Let slip the end, or else hew it in sunder. Return your sight behold unto the shore. There is great number that fain would be aboard. They get no room our ship can hold no more. Haws in the Cocke give them none other word. God guide us from Rocks, quicksand, tempest and ford. If any man of war, weather, or wind appear. My self shall try the wind and keep the Steer. But I pray you readers have you no disdain. Though Barclay have presumed of audacity. This ship to rule as chief master and Captain. Though some think them self much worthier than he. It were great marvel forsooth since he hath be. A scholar long, and that in diverse schools. But he might be Captain of a ship of Fools. But if that any one be in such manner case. That he will challenge the mastership for me. Yet in my ship can I not want a place. For in every place my self I oft may see. But this I leave beseeching each degree. To pardon my youth and to bold enterprise. For hard is it duely to speak of every vice. For if I had tongues an hundredth, and wit to feel, All things natural and supernatural, A thousand mouths: and voice as hard as steel. And seen all the seven Sciences liberal. Yet coward I never touch the vices all. And sin of the world, never their branches comprehend. Not though I lied unto the worlds end. But if these vices which mankind doth encumber. Were clean expelled and virtue in their place. I could not have gathered of fools so great a number. Whose folly from them out chaseth gods grace. But every man that knows him in that case To this rude book let him gladly intend. And learn the way his lewdness to amend. The Prologe of James Locher. After that I have long mused by my self of the sore confounded and uncertain course of mans life, and things thereto belonging. At the last I have by my vigilant meditation found and noted many degrees of errors. Whereby mankind wandreth from the way of truth I have also noted that many wise men and well lettered have written right fruitful doctrines. Whereby they have healed these diseases and intolerable perturbations of the mind and the ghostly wounds thereof, much better than Aesculapius which was first Inventor of Physic and among the Gentles worshipped as a God. In the country of Greece were studies first founded and ordained in the which began and sprang wholesome medicine which gave unto infect minds fruitful doctrine and nourishing. Among whom Socrates that great beginner and honourer of wisdom began to dispute of the manners of men. But for that he could not find certain end of goodness and highest felicity in natural things: nor induce men to the same, he gave the high contemplations of his mind to moral virtues. And in so much passed he all other in Philosophy moral that it was said that he called Philosophy down from the Imperial heaven. When this Socrates perceived the minds of men to be prone, and extremely inclined to viciousness he had great affection to subdue such manners. Wherefore in common places of the city of Athens he instructed and informed the people in such doctrines as compasith the clear and immaculate wells of the most excellent and sovereign good. After the decease of Socrates succeeded the godly Plato, which in moral Philosophy overpassed also a great part of his time And certainly not without a cause was he called godly. For by what study might be more wholly or better succor mankind than by such doctrines as he gave. He wrote and ordained laws most equal and just. He edited unto the Greeks a common wealth stable, quiet and commendable. And ordained the society and company of them most jocund and amiable. He prepared a bridle to refrain the lust and sensuality of the body. And finally he changed the ill ignorance feebleness and negligence of youth unto diligence, strength and virtue. In time also of these Philosophers sprang the flourishing age of Poets: Which among lettered men had not small room and place. And that for their eloquent Rhetoric and also for their merry fictions and inventions. Of the Which Poets some wrote in most ornate terms in ditties heroical wherein the noble acts and lives both of divine and human creatures are wont to be noted and written. Some wrote of tilling of the ground. Some of the Planets, of the courses of the stars: and of the moving of the heaven and firmament. Some of the Empire and shameful subjection of disordered love. And many other of the miserable ruin and fall of Kings and princes for vice: as Tragedies. And some other wrote Comedies with great liberty of speech: which Comedies we call Interludes. Among whom Aristophanes Eupolis and Cratinus most laudable Poets passed all other. For when they saw the youth of Athens and of all the remnant of Greece inclined to all allies they took occasion to note such miss living. And so in plain words they reprieved without favour the vices of the said ill-disposed people of what condition or order they were: Of this ancient writing of Comedies our Latin Poets devised a manner of writing not inelegant. And first Lucilius composed one Satire in the which he wrote by name the vices of certain princes and Citizens of Rome. And that with many bawds so it with his merry speech mixed with rebukes he correct all them of the cite that disorderedly lived. But this merry speech used he not in his writing to the intent to exercise wanton words or unrefrained lascivity, or to put his pleasure in such dissolute language: but to the intent to quench vices and to provoke the commons to wisdom and virtue, and to be ashamed of their folly and excessive living. Of him all the Latin Poets have taken example, and beginning to write Satyrs, Which the Greeks named Comedies: As Fabius specifieth in his ten books of institutions. After Lucilius succeeded Horacius, much more eloquent in writing. Which in the same deserved great laude: Persius also left to us only one book by the Which he committed his name and laude to perpetual memory. The last and prince of all was Juvenal. Which in his jocund poems comprehended all that was written most eloquent and pleasant of all the poet is of that sort afore his time. O noble men, and diligent hearts and minds, o laudable manners and times, these worthy men exiled idleness, whereby they have obtained not small worship and great commodity example and doctrine left to us their posteriors why begin we not to understand and perceive. Why worship not the people of our time these poet is why do not they reverence to the interpreters of them do they not understand. That no Poets write, but either their mind is to do pleasure or else profit to the reader, or else they together will do both profit and pleasure why are they despised of many rude carters of now a days which understand not them. And for lack of them have not Latin to utter and express the will of their mind. See whether poets are to be despised. They laud virtue, and him that useth it, rebuking vices with the users thereof, they teach what is good and what is evil. To what end vice, and what end virtue bringeth us, and do not Poets revile and sharply bite in their poems all such as are un meek, Proud, Covetous, Lecherous, Wanton, delicious, Wrathful gluttons, wasters, Enviers, Enchanters, faith-breakers, rash, unadvised, malapert, drunken, untaught fools, and such like. Should their writing that such things dispraise and revile be despised of many blind Dotards it now live, which envy that any man, should have or understand the thing. Which they know not. The Poets also with great lauds commend and exalt the noble followers of virtue ascribing to every man rewards after his merits. And shortly to say, the intention of all Poets hath ever been to reprieve vice and to commend virtue. But since it is so that now in our days are so many negligent and foolish people that they are almost innumerable Which despising the love of virtue. Follow the blindness and vanity of this world: it was expedient that of new some lettered man, wise, and subtle of wit should awake and touch the open vices of fools that now live: and blame their abominable life. This form and liberty of writing, and charge hath taken upon him the Right excellent and worthy master Sebastian Brant, Doctor of both the laws and noble Orator and Poet to the common wealth of all people in plain and common speech of Dutch in the country of Almain. To the imitation of Dant Florentine: and Francis Petrarch Poets heroical which in their maternal language have composed marvelous Poems and fictions. But amoung diverse inventions composed of the said Sebastian brant I have noted one named the ship of fools much expedient and necessary to the reader which the said Sebastian composed in Dutch language. And after him one called James Locher his Disciple translated the same into Latin to the understanding of all Christian nations where Latin is spoken. Than another, whose name to me is unknown, translated the same into French. I have overseen the first Invention in Dutch and after that the two translations in Latin and French Which in blaming the disordered life of men of our time agreeth in sentence: three fold in language wherefore willing to redress the errors and vices of this our Realm of England: as the foresaid composer and translators hath done in their Countries I have taken upon me: howbeit unworthy to draw into our English tongue the said book named the ship of follies as near to the said three Languages as the paucity of my wit will suffer me. However, the readers give the pardon unto Alexander de Barclay if ignorance, negligence or lack of wit cause him to err in this translation. His purpose and singular desire is to content your minds. And soothly he hath taken upon him the translation of this present book neither for hope of reward nor laud of man: but only for the wholesome instruction commodity and doctrine of wisdom, and to cleanse the vanity and madness of foolish people of whom over great number is in the Realm of England. Therefore let every man behold and over read this book: And then I doubt not but he shall see the errors of his life of what condition that he be in. Like wise as he shall see in a Mirror the form of his countenance and visage: And if he amend such faults as he readeth here wherein he knoweth himself guilty, and pass forth the residue of his life in the order of good manners than shall he have the fruit and advantage where to I have translated this book. Here beginneth the prologe. Among the people of every region. And over the world, south, north, east and west. Soundeth godly doctrine in plenty and foison Wherein the ground of virtue and wisdom doth rest. Read good and bad, and keep the to the best. Was never more plenty of wholesome doctrine. Nor fewer people that doth thereto incline. We have the Bible which goodly doth express. Of the Old Testament the laws mystical. And also of the new our era to redress. Of philosophy and other arts liberal. With other books of virtues moral. But though such books us goodly ways show. We all are blind no man will them ensue. Banished is doctrine, we wander in darkness. Through all the world: our self we will not know. Wisdom is exiled, alas blind foolishness. Misguideth the minds of people high and low. Grace is decayed, all governance doth grow. Both prudent Pallas and Minerva are slain. Or else to heaven returned are they again. Knowledge of truth, Prudence, and just Simplicity. Hath us clean left: For we set of them no store. Our Faith is defiled love, goodness, and Pity: Honest manners no we are reputed of no more. Lawyers are lords: but Justice is rent and tore. Or closed like a Monster within doors three. For without mede: or money no man can her see. All is disordered: virtue hathe no reward. Alas, Compassion: and Mercy both are slain. Alas, the stony hearts of people are so hard. That naught can constrain their follies to refrain. But still they proceed: and each other maintain. So wander these fools: increasing without number. That all the world they utterly encumber. Blasphemers of Christ; Hustlers; and Taverners: Crackers and boasters with Courters adventurous, Bawds and Pollers with common extortioners. Are taken now a days in the world most glorious. But the gifts of grace and all ways gracious. We have excluded. Thus live we carnally: Utterly subdued to all lewdness and Folly. Thus is of fools a sort almost innumerable. Defiling the world with sin and Villainy. Some thinking them self much wise and commendable Though all their days they live unthriftily. No goodness they perceive nor to no good apply. But if he have a great womb, and his Coffers full. Than is none held wiser between London and Hull. But to assemble these fools in one bond. And their demerits worthily to note. Fain shall I Ships of every manner land. None shall be left: Bark, Galley, Ship, nor Boat. One vessel cannot bring them all afloat. For if all these fools were brought into one Barge. The boat should sink so sore should be the charge. The sails are hawsed, a pleasant cole doth blow. The fools assembleth as fast as they may drive. Some swimmeth after: other as thick doth row. In their small boats, as Bees about a hive. The number is great, and each one doth strive. For to be chief as Purser and Captain. Quarter master, Lodesman or else boatswain. They run to our ship, each one doth greatly fear. Least his slack pass, should cause him bide behind. The wind riseth, and is like the sail to tear. Each one enforseth the anchor up to wind. The sea swelleth by planets well I find. These obscure clouds threateneth us tempest. All are not in bed which shall have ill rest. We are full load and yet foresooth I think. A thousand are behind, whom we may not receive. For if we do, our navy clean shall sink. He oft all lessons that covets all to have. From London Rocks almighty god us save. For if we there anchor, other boat or barge. There be so many that they us will overcharge. Thee London Gallants, arear, you shall not enter. We keep the stream, and touch not the shore. In City nor in Court we dare not well adventure. Lest perchance we should displeasure, have therefore. But if the will needs some shall have an oar. And all the remnant shall stand afar at large. And read their faults painted about our barge. Like as a mirror doth represent again. The form and figure of man’s countenance So in our ship shall he see written plain. The form and figure of his misgovernance. What man is faultless, but either ignorance. Or else willfulness causeth him offend Than let him not disdain this ship, till he amend. And certainly I think that no creature. Living in this life mortal in transitory. Can him self keep and steadfastly endure. Without all spot, as worthy eternal glory. But if he call to his mind and memory. Fully the deeds both of his youth and age. He will grant in this ship to keep some stage. But who so ever will knowledge his own folly. And if repent, living after in simpleness. Shall have no place nor roam more in our navy. But become fellow to Pallas the gods. But he that fixed is in such a blindness. That though he be naught he thinketh all is well. Such shall in this Barge bear a babble and a bell. These with other like may each man see and read. Each by them self in this small book overall. The faults shall he find if he take good head. Of all estates as degrees temporal. With guiders of dignities spiritual. Both poor and rich, Chorles and Citizens. For hast to leap aboard many bruise their shins. Here is beardless youth, and here is crooked age. Children with their fathers that ill do them insign. And doth not intend their wantons to swage. Neither by word nor yet by discipline. Here be men of every science and doctrine. Learned and unlearned man made child and wife. May here see and read the lewdness of their life. Here are vile women: whom love Immoderate. And lust venereal bringeth to hurt and shame. Here are prodigal Gallants: with movers of debate. And thousands more whom I not well dare name. Here are Backbiters, which good livers defame. Breakers of wedlock, men proud and covetous. Pollers, and pikers with folk delicious. It is but folly to rehearse the names here. Of all such Fools: as in one Shield or targe. Sins that their folly distinctly shall appear. On every leaf, in Pictures fair and large. To Barclays study, and Pynnsons cost and charge. Wherefore ye readers pray that they both may be saved. Before God, Sins they your follies have thus graved. But to the intent that every man may know. The cause of my writings certes I intend. To profit and to please both high and low. And blame their faults whereby they may amend. But if that any his quarrel will defend. Excusing his faults to my derision. Know he that noble Poets thus have done. Afore my days a thousand year ago. Blaming and reviling the inconvenience. Of people, willing them to withdraw therefore. Them I ensue: not like of intelligence. And though I am not to them like in science. Yet this is my will, mind and intention. To blame all vice likewise as they have done. To tender youth my mind is to avail. That they eschew may all lewdness and offence. Which doth their minds often sore assail. Closing the eye of their intelligence. But if I halt in meter, or err in eloquence. Or be too large in language I pray you blame not me. For my mater is so bad it will none other be. The Argument. Here after followeth the book named the ship of fools of the world: translated out of Latin, French and Dutch into English in the College of saint Mary Ottery. By me, Alexander Barclay to the felicity and most wholesome instruction of mankind the which containeth all such as wander from the way of truth and from the open Path of wholesome understanding and wisdom. Falling into diverse blindness’s of your mind, foolish sensualities, and unlawful delectations of the body. This present book might have been called not inconveniently the Satyr (that is to say) the reprehension of foolishness, but the novelty of the name was more pleasant unto the first actor to call it the ship of fools. For in likewise as old Poets Satirizes in diverse Poesies conjoined repredited the sins and illness of the people at that time living, so and in likewise this our book representeth unto the eye of the readers the states and conditions of men, so that every man may behold within the same the course of his life and his misgoverned manners, as he should behold the shadow of the figure of his visage within a bright Mirror. But concerning the translation of this Book: I exhort you readers to take no displeasure for it is not translated word by word according to the verses of my actor. For I have but only draw into our mother tongue, in rude language the sentences of the verses as near as the paucity of my wit will suffer me, sometime adding, Sometime detracting and taking away such things a seemeth me necessary and superfluous. Wherefore I desire of you readers pardon of my presumptuous audacity trusting that you shall hold me excused if you consider the scarceness of my wit and my inexpert youth. I have in many places overpassed diverse poetical digressions and obscureness of Fables and have concluded my work in rude language as shall appear in my translation. But the special cause that move-eth me to this business is to avoid the execrable inconveniences of idleness, which, as Saint Bernard sayth, is mother of all vices: and to the utter derision of obstinate men delighting them in follies and miss governance. But because the name of this book seems to the reader to proceed of derision: and by that mean that the substance there of should not be profitable: I will advertise you that this book is named the ship of fools of the world. For this world is naught else but a tempestuous sea in the which we daily wander and are cast in diverse tribulations pains and adversities: some by ignorance and some by willfulness: wherefore such doers are worthy to be called fools. Sins they guide them not by reason as creatures reasonable ought to do. Therefore the first actor willing to decide such fools from Wiseman and good livers: hath he ordained upon the sea of this world this present ship to contain these follies of the world, which are in great number. So that who readeth it perfectly considering his secret deeds, he shall not lightly excuse himself out of it, what so ever good name it he hath outward in the mouth of the community. And to the intent it this my labour may be the more pleasant unto lettered men, I have adorned unto the same the verses of my Actor with diverse concordances of the Bible to fortify my writing by the same, and also to stop the envious mouths, if any such shall be, of them that by malice shall bark against this my business. Here beginneth the fools and first unprofitable books. The first fool and his books. I am the first fool of all the whole navy. To keep the pomp, the helm and eke the sail. For this is my mind, this one pleasure have I. Of books to have great plenty and apparel. I take no wisdom by them: nor yet avail. Nor them perceive not: And then I them despise. Thus am I a fool and all that saw that guise. That in this ship the chief place I govern. By this wide sea with follies wandering. The cause is plain, and easy to discern. Still am I busy books assembling. For to have plenty it is a pleasant thing. In my conceit and to have them aye in hand. But what they mean do I not understand. But yet I have them in great reverence. And honour saving them from filth and ordure. By often brushing, and much diligence. Full goodly bound in pleasant coverture Of domas, satin, or else of velvet pure. I keep them sure fearing least they should be lost. For in them is the cunning wherein I me boast. But if it fortune that any learned men. Within my house fall to disputation. I draw the curtains to show my books then. That they of my cunning should make probation I keep not to fall in altercation. And while they common my books I turn and wind. For all is in them, and no thing in my mind. Tholomeus the rich caused long ago. Over all the world good books to be sought. Done was his commandment anone. These books he had and in his study brought. Which passed all earthly treasure as he thought. But nevertheless he did him not apply. Unto their doctrine, but lived unhappily. Lo, in likewise of books I have store. But few I read, and fewer understand. I follow not their doctrine nor their lore. It is enough to bear a book in hand. It were too much to be it such a band. For to be bound to look within the book. I am content on the fair covering to look. Why should I study to hurt my wit thereby. Or trouble my mind with study excessive. Since many are which study right beside. And yet thereby shall they never thrive The fruit of wisdom can they not contrive. And many to study so much are inclined That utterly they fall out of their mind, Each is not lettered that now is made a lord. Nor each a clerk that hath a benefice. They are not all lawyers that please doth record. All that are promoted are not fully wise. On such chance now, fortune throws her dice. That though one know but the Irish game. Yet would he have a gentleman’s name. So in likewise I am in such case. Though I naught can I would be called wise. Also I may set another in my place Which may for me my books exercise Or else I shall ensue the common guise. And say concede to every argument. Least by much speech, my Latin should be spent. I am like other Clerks, which so forwardly them guide. That after they are once come unto promotion. They give them to pleasure their study set aside. Their Avarice covering with fained devotion. Yet daily they preach, and have great derision. Against the rude Laymen: and all for Covetousness. Though their own Conscience be blinded with that vice. But if I durst truth plainly utter and express. This is the special cause of this Inconvenience. That greatest fools, and fullest of lewdness. Having least wit, and simplest Science. Are first promoted: and have greatest reverence For if one can flatter, and bear a hawk on his Fist. He shall be made Person of Honnigton or of Clist. But he that is in study ay firm and diligent. And without all favour preacheth Christs lore. Of all the Community now a days is sore spent. And by Estates threatened to Prison oft therefore. Thus what avail is it, to us to study more. To know other scripture, truth, wisdom, or virtue. Sins few, or none without favour dare them show. But O noble Doctors, that worthy are of name: Consider our old fathers: note well their diligence. Ensue you their steps: obtain you such fame. As they did living, and that by true Prudence. Within their hearts, they planted their science. And not in pleasant books. But now to few such be. Therefore, in this ship let them come row with me. The Envoy of Alexander Barclay Translator, Exhorting the fools accloyed with this vice to amend their folly. Say worthy doctors and Clerks curious. What moveth you of books to have such number. Sins diverse doctrines through way contrarious. Doth man’s mind distract and sore encumber. Alas, blind men awake, out of your slumber. And if you will needs, your books multiply. With diligence endeavour you some to occupy. Of evil Counsellors, Judges and men of law. The fools that would seeth a quick sow in a pan. He that Office hath and high authority. To rule a Realm as Judge or Counselor. Which seeing Justice, plain right and equity. Them falsely blindeth by favour or rigour. Condemning wretches guilts. And to a Transgressor. For meed showing favour, such is as wise a man. As he that would seeth a quick Sowe in a Pan. Right many labours now, with high diligence. For to be Lawyers, the Commons to counsel. Thereby to be in honour had and in reverence. But only they labour for their private avail. The purse of the Client shall find him apparel. And yet knows he neither law, good counsel nor Justice. But speaketh at adventure: as men throw the dice. Such in the Senate are taken oft to counsel. With States of this and many another region. Which of their manners unstable are and frail. Naught of Law Civil, knowing, nor Canon. But wander in darkness, clearness they have none. O noble Rome thou got not thy honours. Nor general Empire by such Counsellors. When noble Rome all the world did govern. Their councilors were old men, just and prudent. Which eagerly did everything discern. Whereby their Empire became so excellent. But now a days he shall have his intent. That hath most gold, and so it is befall. That angels work wonders in Westminster hall. There cursed coin maketh the wrong seem right. The cause of him that liveth in poverty. Hath no defence, tuition, strength nor might. Such is the old custom of this faculty. That colours oft cloak Justice and equality. None can the matter feel, nor understand. Without the angel, be weighty in his hand. Thus for the hunger of silver and of gold. Justice and right is in captivity. And as we see not given free, but sold. Neither to estates, nor simple community. And though that many lawyers right wiseness be. Yet many other disdain to see the right. And they are such as blind Justice Sight. There is one and other alleged at the bar. And namely such as crafty were in gloss. Upon the law, the client is stand afar. Full little knowing how the matter goes. And many other the laws clean transpose. Following the example, of lawyers dead and gone. Till the poor Clients be eaten to the bone. It is not enough to confirm thy mind. Unto the others fained opinion. Thou should say truth, so Justice doth the bind. And also law giveth the commission. To know her, and keep her without transgression. Least they whom thou hast judged wrongfully Unto the high Judge for vengeance on the cry. Perchance thou thinkest that god taketh no head. To manys deeds, nor works of offence. Yes, certainly he knows thy thought and deed. Nothing is secret, nor hid from his presence. Wherefore if thou wilt guide thee by prudence. Or thou give Judgment of matter, less or more. Take wise men is read and good counsel before. Look in what Balance, what weight and what measure. Thou servest other, for thou shalt served be. With the same after this life I the ensure. If thou right wisely Judge by law and equality. Thou shalt have presence of god’s high majesty. But if thou Judge amiss than shall Excuse. As Poets sayth, hell Judge thy reward discuss. God is above and reigneth sempiternally. Which shall us deem at his last Judgment, And give rewards to each one equally. After such form as he, his life hath spent. Than shall we them see whom we as violent. Traitors: have put to wrong in word or deed. And after our desert even such shall be our mead. There shall be no Bail nor treating of mainprise. No worldly wisdom there shall nothing prevail. There shall be no delays until another Size. But other quiet, or to infernal Gail. Ill Judges so judged, lo here their travail. Worthily rewarded in world without end. Than shall no grace, be granted nor space to amend. The Envoy of Alexander Barclay the translator. Therefore you young Students of the Chancery: I speak not to the old, the Cure of them is past. Remember that Justice long hath in bondage be. Reduce you hear now unto liberty at the last. Endeavour you here bonds to louse or to brast. Her ransom is paid and more by a thousand pound. And yet alas the lady Justice lyeth bound. Though your forefathers have taken her prisoner. And done her in a Dungeon not meant for her degree. Lay to your hands and help her from danger. And here restore unto her liberty. That poor men and moniles may her only see. But certainly, I fear lest she hath lost her name. Or by long prisonment shall after ever be lame. Of Avarice or covetous and prodigality. Gathering riches. You that are given over much to Covetousness. Come near, a place is here for you to dwell. Come near you wasteful people in likewise. You are room shall be high in the Top castle. You care for no shame, for heaven nor for hell. Gold is your god, riches gotten wrongfully. You damn your soul, and yet live in penury. He that is busy every day and hour. Without measure, manner, or moderation. To gather riches and great store of treasure. Thereof no joy taking, comfort nor consolation. He is a Fool, and of blind and mad opinion. For that which he getteth and keepeth wrongfully. His heir often wasteth much more unthriftily. While he here livethin this life caduke and mortal. Full sore he laboureth: and oft hungry goeth to bed. Sparing from himself: for him that never shall. After do him good, though he were hard bested. Thus is this covetous wretch so blindly led. By the fend that here he liveth wretchedly. And after his death damned eternally. There wandreth he in dolour and darkness. Among infernal floods tedious and horrible. Let see what availeth than all his riches. Ungraciously gotten, his pains are terrible. Than would he amend but it is impossible. In hell is no order nor hope of remedy. But sorrow upon sorrow, and that everlastingly. Yet find I another vice as bad as this. Which is the vice of prodigality. He spendeth all in riot and amiss. Without all order, pursuing poverty. He liketh not to live still in prosperity. But all and more he wasteth out at large. Beware the end, is the least point of his charge. But of the covetous somewhat to say again. Thou art a fool thy soul to sell for riches. Or put thy body to labour or to pain. Thy mind to fear, thy heart to heaviness. Thou fool thou fleest no manner cruelness. So thou may get money, to make thy heir a knight. Thou slayest thy soul where as thou save it might. Thou hast no rest thy mind is ever in fear. Of misadventure, nor never art content. Death is forgotten, thou carest not a here. To save thy soul from infernal punishment. If thou be dampened, than art thou at thy stent. By thy riches which thou here hast left behind. To thy executors, thou shalt small comfort find. Their custom is to hold fast that they have. Thy poor soul shall be farthest from their thought. If that thy cares be brought only in the grave. And that they have thy bags in hands caught. What say they, than, by god the man had naught. While he here livid he was too liberal. Thus dampened is thy soul, thy riches cause of all. Who will deny but it is necessary. Of riches for to have plenty and store. To this opinion, I will not say contrary. So it be ordered after holy lore. While thy self leavest depart some to the poor. With thy own hand, trust not thy executors. Give for god, and god shall send at all hours. Read Tullius works the worthy Orator. And written shalt thou find in right fruitful sentence. That never Wiseman loved over great honour. Nor to have great riches put over great diligence. But- only their mind was set on Sapience. And quietly to live in Just simplicity. For in greatest honour is greatest jeopardy. He that is simple, and on the ground doth lie. In addition, that can be content with enough or sufferance Is surer by much than he that Leith on high. Now up, now down ensure as a Balance. But soothly he that set will his pleasance. Only on wisdom and still therefore labour. Shall have more good than all earthly treasure. Wisdom teacheth to eschew all offence. Guiding mankind the right way to virtue. But of covetous Comes all Inconvenience. It causeth man of word to be untrue. Foreswearing and falsehood doth it also ensue. Bribery and Extortion, murder and mischief. Shame is his end: his living is reprieve. By covetous Crassus brought was to his end. By it the worthy Romans lost their name. Of this one ill a thousand ills doth descend. Beside envy, Pride, wretchedness and Shame. Crates the Philosopher did covetous so blame: That to have his mind unto his study free. He threw his Treasure all whole into the sea. But shortly to conclude. Both bodily bondage. And ghostly also, proceedeth of this covetousness. The soul is damned, the body hath damage. As hunger, thirst, and cold with other prejudice. Bereft of the joys of heavenly Paradise. For gold was their God and that is left behind. Their bodies buried the soul clean out of mind. The Envoy of Alexander Barclay translator. Therefore thou covetous thou wretch I speak to thee. Amend thy self rise out of this blindness. Content the with enough for thy degree. Dam not thy soul by gathering frail riches. Remember this is a Tale of wretchedness. Thou shalt no rest nor dwelling place here find. Depart thou shalt and leave it all behind. Of New Fashions and Disguised Garments. Their goods are wasted, lost, and spent. Who that new garments loves or devices. Or wherewith by his simple wit, and vanity. Giveth by his folly and unthrifty guises. Much ill example to young Community. Such one is a fool and scant shall ever thee. And commonly it is seen that now a days. One fool gladly follows another’s ways. Draw near you Courters and Gallants disguised. You counterfeit Caytifs, that are not content. As god hath you made: his work is despised. You think you more crafty than God omnipotent. Unstable is your mind, that shows by your garment. A fool is known by his toys and his Coat. But by their clothing now may we many note. Apparel is appeared, all sadness is decayed. The garments are gone that longed to honesty. And in new sorts, new fools are arrayed. Despising the costume of good antiquity. Manny’s form is disfigured with every degree. As Knight, Squire, yeoman, Gentleman and knave, For all in their going ungodly they behave. The time hath been, not long before our days. When men with honest ray could hold them self-content. Without these disguised, and counterfeited ways. Whereby their goods are wasted, lost, and spent. Socrates with many more in wisdom excellent. Because they would naught change that cam of nature. Let grow their here without cutting or scissor. At that time was it reputed to laud and great honour. To have long hair, the Beard down to the breast For so they used that were of most valour. Striving together who might be godliest. Saddest, most cleanly, discretest, and most honest. But now a days together we contend and strive. Who may be gayest: and newest ways contrive. Few keepeth measure, but excess and great outrage. In their apparel. And so therein, they proceed. That their good is spent: their Land laid to mortgage. Or sold out right: of Thrift, they take no heed. Having no Penny them to succor at their needy. So when their good by such wastefulness is lost. They sell again their Clothes for half that they cost. A fox furred Gentleman: of the first year or head. If he be made a Bailiff a Clarke or a Constable. And can keep a Parke or Court and read a Deed. Than is Velvet to his state mete and agreeable. Howbeit he were more mete to hear a Babble. For his fools Hood his given so sore doth blind. That Pride expelleth his linage from his mind. Yet find I another sort almost as bad as they. As young Gentlemen descended of worthy Ancestry. Which go full wantonly in dissolute array. Counterfeit, disguised, and much unmannerly. Blazing and guarded: to low or else to high. And wide without measure, their stuff to waste thus goeth. But other some they suffer to die for lack of cloth. Some their necks charged with colers, and chains. As golden with these, their fingers full of rings. Their necks naked, almost unto the rains. Their sleeves blazing like to a Cranes wings. Thus by this devising such counterfeited things. They deform that figure that god himself hath made. On pride and abusion thus are their minds laid. Than the Courters careless, that on their master wait. Seeing him his vesture in such form abuse. Assayeth such Fashion for them to counterfeit. And so to sue Pride continually they muse. Than steel they; or Rub they. Foresooth they cannot choose. For without Land or Labour hard is it to maintain. But to think on the Gallows that is a careful pain. But be it pain or not, there many such end. At Newgate their garments are offered to be sold. Their bodies to the Jebet solemnly ascend. Waving with the weather while their neck will hold. But if I should write all the ills manifold. That proceedeth of this counterfeit abusion. And misshapen Fashions: I never should have done. For both States, commons, man, woman, and child. Are utterly inclined to this inconvenience. But namely there with these Courters are defiled. Between master and man, I find no difference. Therefore you Courters knowledge your offence. Do not your error maintain, support nor excuse. For Fouls year your Rainment thus to abuse. To ship Gallants come near I say again. With your set Bushes Curling as men of India. You counterfeited Courters come with your fleeing brain. Expressed by these variable Garments that you find. To tempt chaste Damsels and turn them to your mind. Your breast you discover and neck. Thus your abusion. Is the Fends bate. And your souls confusion. Come near disguised Fools: receive your fools Hood. And you that in sundry colours are arrayed. You guarded gallants wasting thus your good. Come near with your Shirts brodered and displayed. In form of Surplus. Foresoth it may be said. That of your Sort right few shall thrive this year. Or that your fathers weareth such Habit in the quere. And you Gentle women whom this lewd vice doth blind. Laced on the back: your peakes set aloft. Come to my Ship. Forget you not behind. Your Saddle on the tail: if you lest to sit soft. Do on your Deck Slut: if you purpose to come oft. I mean your Copintanke: And if it will do no good. To keep you from the rain, you shall have a fools hood. By the ale stake know we the alehouse. And every Inn is known by the sign. So a lewd woman and a lecherous. Is known by her clothes, be they coarse or fine. Following new fashions, not granted by doctrine. The butcher showeth his flesh it to sell. So doth these women damping their soul to hell. What shall I more write of our enormity. Both man and woman as I before have said Are rayed and clothed not after their degree. As not content with the shape that god hath made. The cleanliness of Clergy is near also decayed. Our old apparel, alas, is now laid down. And many protest ashamed of their Crown. Unto laymen we us reform again. As of Christ our master in manner half-ashamed. My heart doth weep: my tongue doth sore complain Seeing how our State is worthy to be blamed. But if all the folly of our Hole Realm were named. Of miss-apparel of Old, young, low, and high, The time should fail, and space to me deny. Alas thus all states of Christian men declines. And of women also deforming their figure. Worse than the Turks, Jews, or Saracens. And England amend or be thou sure. Thy noble name and fame cannot endure. Amend lest god do grievously chastise. Both the beginners and follows of this vice. The Envoy of Alexander Barclay the translator. Reduce courters clearly unto your remembrance. From when’s this disguising was brought wherein you go. As I remember, it was brought out of France. This is to your pleasure. But pain you had also. As French Pocks hote ills with other pains more. Take you in good worth the sweetness with the Sour. For often pleasure endeth with sorrow and dolour. But you proud Gallants that thus yourself disguise Be you ashamed, behold unto your Prince. Consider his sadness. His honesty devise. His clothing expresseth his inward prudence. You see no Example of such Inconvenience. In his highness: but godly wit and gravity. Ensue him: and sorrow for your enormity. Away with this pride, this stateliness let be. Read of the Prophet’s clothing or vesture. And of Adam first of your ancestry. Of John the Prophet, their clothing was obscure. Vile and homely, but now what creature. Will then ensue, soothly few by their will. Therefore, such follies my navy shall fulfill. Of Old Follies that is to say the longer they live the more they are given to folly. The old fool. How beit I stoop, and fast decline. Daily to my grave, and sepulture And though my life fast do incline. To pay the tribute of nature. Yet still remain I and endure. In my old sins, and them not hate. Naught young, worse old, such is my state. The madness of my youth written in my age. And the blind folly of my iniquity. Will me not suffer to leave mine old visage. Nor my fore living full of enormity. Lame are his limbs, and also I cannot see. I am a child and yet lived have I. An hundredth winter, increasing my folly. But though I might learn, my will is not thereto. But busy I am and fully set my thought. To give example to children to miss do By my lewd doctrine bringing them to naught And when they are only into my dance brought I teach them my folly, wisdom set aside. My self-example, beginner, and their guide. My lewd life, my folly and my self-willed mind. Which I have still kept hitherto in this life. In my testament, I leave written behind. Bequeathing part both to man, child and wife. I am the actor of mischief and of strife. The folly of my youth and the inconvenience. In age, I practice, teaching by experience. I am a fool and glad am of that name. Desiring laud for each ungracious deed. And of my folly to spread abroad the same. To show my vice and sin, as void of dread. Of heaven or hell. Therefore, I take no heed. But as some strive disputing of their cunning. Right so do I in lewdness and miss living. Sometime I boast me of falsehood and deceit. Sometime of the seed that sewn is by me. Of all mischief, as murder flattery debate. Covetous, backbiting, theft and lechery. My mind is not to mend my iniquity. But rather I sorrow that my life is wore. That I cannot do as I have done before. But sins my life so suddenly doth appear. That bide I cannot still in this degree. I shall inform and teach my son and heir. To follow his father, and learn this way of me. The way is large, god how glad shall he be. Learning my lore with affection and desire. And follow the steps of his unthrifty sire. I trust so crafty and wise to make the lad. That me his father he shall pass and excel. O that my heart shall than be wonder glad If I here of may know, see, or here tell. If he be false faining, subtle or cruel. And so still endure, I have a special hope. To make him scribe to a Cardinal or Pope. Or else if he can be a false extortioner. Fasing and boasting to scratch and to keep. He shall be made a common customer. As each hope of Lynn, Calais or of Dieppe. Than may he after to some great office creep. So that if he can honest plead a case. He may be made Judge of the common place. Thus shall he live as I have all his days. And in his age increase his foolishness. His father came to worship by such ways. So shall the son, if he himself address. To sue my steps in falsehood and lewdness. And at least if he can come to no degree. This ship of follies shall he govern with me. Barclay to the Follies. Awake age alas what thinkest thou be. Awake I say out of thy blind darkness. Rememberest thou not that shortly thou shalt die. Arise from sin amend thy foolishness. Though thy youth rooted were in viciousness. Arise in age is full time to leave it. Thy grave is open thy one foot in the pit. Leave thy boasting of that thou hast done amiss. Bewail thy sins, saying with rueful moan. O God, do not remember the sins of my youth. Amend thee or thy youth be fully gone. That sore is hard to heal that breads in the bone. He that is naught young, proceeding so in age. Shall scant ever his viciousness asswage. What thing is more abominable in god’s sight. Than vicious age, certainly nothing. It is eke worldly shame, when thy courage and might. Is near decayed, to keep thy lewd living. And by example of thee, thy young children to bring. Into a vicious life: and all goodness to hate. Alas age thus thou art the Fends battled. Of the Erudition of Negligent Fathers against their Children. The fool that suffers his children to offend. That fool that suffreth his Child for to offend. Without rebuking, blame, and correction. And him not exhorteth, himself to amend. Of such faults as by him are done. Shall it sore repent: god wrote how some. For oft the fathers folly, favour, and negligence. Causeth the Child for to fall to great offence. A miserable fool evermore shall he be. A wretch unadvised, and a Catyf blind. Which his children faults foreseeth not to see. Having no care for to induce their mind. To godly virtue: and vice to leave behind. For while they are young fearful and tender of age. Their vice and folly is easy to asswage. Two diverse sorts of these fools may we find. By whom their children are brought to confusion. The one is negligent, the other is stark blind. Not willing to behold his child’s ill condition. While he is in youth: But for a conclusion. He is a fool that will not see their vice. And he that sayeth: and will it not chastise. Alas, thou art a cursed counsellor. To wanton youth that tender is of age. To let them wander without governor. Or wise master, in youths furious rage. Get them a master their folly to asswage For as a heardless flock strait in Jeopardy So children without guide wander in folly. Too much liberty pleasure and license. Given unto youth, whether it be or age. Right often causeth great inconvenience. As riot misrule with other sore damage. Their land and goods sold or laid to gage. But thou foolish father art ready to excuse Thy young children of their sin and abuse. Thou sayest they are over tender to eschew. Their foolish manners and they have no skill. To know the ways of goodness or virtue. Nor to discern what is good, what is ill. Thou blind dotard these words hold thou still. Their youth cannot excuse thy foolishness. He that can ill as well might learn goodness. A young heart is as apt to take wisdom. As is an old, and if it rotted be. It soweth seed of holy life to come. Also in children we often times see. Great aptness outward and sin of gravity. But fill an earthen pot first with ill liquor And ever after, it shall smell somewhat sour. So youth brought up in lewdness and in sin. Shall scant it scrape so clean out of his mind. But that still after some spot will bide within. A little twig pliant is by kind. A bigger branch is hard to bow or wind. But suffer the branch to a big tree to grow. And rather it shall brake than either wind or bow. Correct thy child while he is like a twig. Supple and pliant, apt to correction. It will be hard foresooth when he is big. To bring his stubborn heart to subjection. What hurteth punishment with moderation. Unto young children, certainly nothing. It voideth vice, getting virtue and cunning. Say foolish father haddest thou leaver see Thy sons neck unwrested with a rope. Than with a rod his skin should broken be. And oft thou trustest: and hast a steadfast hope. To see thy son promoted near as high as is the Pope But yet perchance mourn thou shalt full sore. For his shameful end: fortuned for lack of lore. Some follow their children’s will and lewd pleasure. So granting them their mine: that after it doth fall. To their great shame: they sorrow and dolour. As did to Primus a King Imperial. Which suffered his men: his son chief of them all By force from Greece to rob the faire Helen. Whereby both father and son were after slain. With noble Hector and many thousands more. The City of Troy unto the ground clean burnt. I read in the Chronicles of the Romans also. How Tarquine the proud had shame and punishment. For ravishing chaste Lucres Against her assent. Wherefore herself she slew her seeing thus defiled. For the which deed this Tarquin was exiled, From Rome: wandering in the Coasts of Italy. Did not the traitor Catalina also conspire? In addition, many more sworn to his cruel tyranny. Against the Romans to oppress their Empire, However, he and all his were murdered for their hire, And not unworthily. Behold whereto they come. Which are not informed in youth to ensue wisdom. The son oft followeth the fathers behavior. And if the father be discrete and virtuous. The son shall such ways practice both day and hour. But if that the father be lewd and vicious. By falsehood living: and by ways cautelous. The son also the same ways will ensue And that much rather than goodness or virtue Therefore it needeth that better provision. Were found for youth by sad and wise counsel. Far from their fathers of this condition. And other lewd guides which might their minds assail. Grievously with sin. So were it their avail. From their fathers fraud and falsehood to decline. And them submit to some laudable man’s doctrine. Peleus, Sometime a noble and worthy king. Subdued Achilles unto the doctrine. Of phoenix which was both worthy and cunning. Wherefore Achilles right gladly did incline. With his heart and mind unto his discipline. Whereby his name so noble was at the last That all Say in worthiness he past. Right so Philippus a King worthy of name. Over all Greece made great iniquition. To find one wise, sad and laudable of fame. To Alexander his son for to give Instruction. Found was great Aristotle at the conclusion. Disciple of Plato. Which in every Science. Informed this Child with perfect diligence. Which Alexander afterward had so great dignity. What by his strength, his cunning, and boldness. That he was lord both of Land and Sea. And none durst rebel against his worthiness. Lo here the laude, the honour, and nobles. Which doth proceed of virtue and doctrine But beware the fathers that now hereto incline. Few are that forceth now adverse to see. Their children taught: or to do any cost. On some sad man, wise, and of authority: All that is thereon bestowed think they lost. The foolish father oft times maketh great boast. That he his son to abundant riches shall advance. But no thing he speaketh of virtuous governance. The father made but small shift or provision. To induce his Son by virtuous doctrine. But when he is dead and past: much less shall the son. To study of grace his mind or heart incline. But abuse his reason: and from all good decline. Alas, foolish fathers give your advertence. To Crates complaint comprised in this sentence. If it were granted to me to show my thought. Ye foolish fathers Caytifes I might you call. Which gather riches to bring your Child to naught. Giving him occasion for to be prodigal. But good nor cunning show you him none at all. But when you draw to age, you than most commonly. Sorrow for your sufferance. But without remedy. An old sore to hell is oft half incurable. Right soar these Children rooted in mischief. Some after ever liveth a life abominable. To all their Kin great sorrow and reprieve. The one is a murderer the other a fearless thief, The one of god nor good man hath no force no care. Another so out wasteth that his friends are full bare. Some their land and livelihood in riot out wasteth, At cards, and, tennis, and other unlawful games. And some with the Dice their thrift away casteth. Some their soul damns, and their body shames. With fleshly lust: which many one defames. Spending the flowers of youth much unthriftily. On diverse Branches that long to Lechery. Another delighteth himself in Gluttony. Eating and drinking without manner, or measure. The more that some drink: the more they wax dry. He is most Gallant which longest can endure. Thus without measure overcharge they their nature. So that their soul is lost their body and goods is spent. For lack of doctrine, Nurture and punishment. See here plain prose, example and evidence. How youth which is not nourished in doctrine. In age is given unto all Inconvenience. But naught shall make youth sooner for to incline. To noble manners: nor Godly discipline. Than shall the doctrine of a master wise and sad: For the rote of virtue and wisdom thereby is had. Without doubt, Nobleness is much excellent. Which oft causeth youth to be had in great honour. To have the name, and laud they are content. Though it be not gotten by their own labour. But what availeth them this lewd obscure error. Of such high birth them self to magnify. Seeth they defile it with vice and villainy. Why art thou proud thou foul of that nobles. Which is not gotten by thine own virtue. By thy good manners, wit nor worthiness. But this forsooth oft times find I true. That of a good beast, ill whelps may issue. In likewise of a mother that is both chaste and good. Often is brought forth a full ungracious Brood. But though the childe be of lewd condition. And of his nature froward and variable If the father be slack in the correction. Of his child, he only is culpable. Which will not teach him manners commendable. Thus is the father a fool for his sufferance. And the son also for his miss governance. The Envoy. Avoid fathers your favour and sufferance. Against your children in their fault and offence. Reduce you clearly unto your remembrance. That many a thousand inconvenience. Have children done by their father’s negligence. But to say truth briefly in one clause. The father's favour only is the cause. Of tale bearers, false reporters, and promoters of strifes. The reward of the talebearers. Of follies yet find I another manner sort. Which eare cause of brawling strife and division. Such eare double tounged that leasings

Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html Source of Rahan Comics: Philippe Ropers. https://vk.com/topic-203785966_47424128 Rahan. Episode One hundred and Seven. By Roger Lecureux, drawn by Andre Cheret. The Vampire Men. Heavy clouds glided across the velvet of the night, masking and unmasking the moon. The time of the round moon has finally returned! The time to fight! The time of blood! May the spirits be favorable to the vampire-men, may they provide them with the drink of strength in abundance! Page Two. Start hunting tonight, “Vampire” brothers! You only have time for the round moon to kill! Put it to good use! To face the sad time of the pointed moon we will need blood! Lots of blood! Page Three. The son of Crao, this morning, did not even have time to un-sheath his knife. The tiger had sprung from the hides like lightning. Rahan's first instinct was to protect his throat. Rahan will not give up his life to you, “Striped Skin”! The second, to tear his weapon from the lizard sheath. Rahan only has one fang but it is as formidable as yours! The ivory "Fang" penetrated the feline's flesh without reaching a vital point and this blow only increased his rage tenfold! Page Four. Crushed by the beast, Rahan struck again, desperately. The man's panting mingled with the beast's growls. She finally arched her back, struck by a blow to her heart. Ra-ha-ha! The victorious clamor of the son of Crao was prolonged by a groan of bitterness. Once again he had to kill. Kill to survive! Other hunters must have acted like Rahan! He had just seen the body of a second beast. Two little ones were meowing next to this tigress. It was to avenge his female that the Striped Skin attacked Rahan! Page Five. Rahan had nothing to do with your mother's death. Those who killed her have. Oh. The tigress, whose throat was cut, seemed to have been drained of blood by a swarm of vampires. But this proves that she perished under the hunters' spears! Why did these hunters not take their game? Would they have killed for fun? Perplexed, the son of Crao observed the thin skin found in the bushes, when. Capture this “Vampire”! He will have to pay for this new carnage! Page Six. A “Vampire”? What are you talking about? Rahan does not understand! Do not deny it, "Fire Hair"! Only the "Vampires" wear similar skin! And these massacred “Striped-Skins” are further proof! Rahan killed the male to save his life! The female was slaughtered by other hunters! Do you think they would forgive Rahan for killing their mother? The young tigers who rubbed against his legs exonerated the son of Crao. Arko believes Rahan! May he be welcome among us! You talk about it at your pleasure, Arko! You are not yet the leader of the clan! And you neither, Broak! Under the amused eye of Rahan, the three men competed for the honor of presenting him to their clan, of which each aspired to become leader! Page Seven. A little later. You arrived among us at a bad time. Our leader is dead. And Arko, Broak and Congh are constantly competing to replace him! They are as brave, as loyal, as skillful as each other! Look! The three men challenged each other with a bow. Broak's arrow impaled a bird in mid-flight. See then! Only Broak can be the commander! He had not said these words before the arrows of his rivals hit the same bird during its fall! Ha-ha-ha! Congh has no lessons to learn from anyone! Arko had not commented on his feat. The pretension of his companions irritated the son of Crao. Page Eight. It is not enough to be skilled with a bow! A good hunter must also be good with other weapons! Like this, for example! Seizing an ax, Rahan aimed at the knot of a trunk! Zlang! And now, let us lend Rahan a spear and then a bow! It was astonishing. The spear stuck in the wood of the axe. And, the arrow in that of the spear! When the ivory knife completed this masterful demonstration, an ovation rose up in which Arko, Broak and Congh themselves participated. Page Nine. Later. You are the most skillful hunter my old eyes have ever seen! You should advise us on how to select our chief! No, grand-father! A leader must be appointed by his own people! Uh, Uh. I told you Arko, Broak and Congh are the same! And then, and then. We hesitate, because it has happened in the past that the elected leader took revenge on those who had spoken out against him. Or by humiliating them. Either by placing them during hunts in the most dangerous places. It is good for a leader to be chosen by the greatest number. But he should ignore the names of those who do not trust him. Clamors suddenly interrupted the old man's thoughts. Alert! Alert! The Vampires are attacking! Page Ten. While women and children took refuge under cover, the hunters confronted the attackers. With their skin capes, these men were reminiscent of the "Rats-that-fly," these blood-sucking "Vampires"! Very good, Arko! But Congh will do better than you! The Three “Chiefs” competed in earnest, and Rahan had no reason to envy them! But their fierce resistance could not change the outcome of a fight where the vampire men had the advantage of surprise and numbers! The blood of the round moon boils within us! Jaipur will be proud of the clan! The son of Crao and his companions were led towards a distant cliff which emerged from the foliage. Page Eleven. Vampires have a cruel custom. Each time the sun returns, they spread throughout the forest To slaughter and bleed all the beasts that they manage to surprise! By drinking their blood they are convinced that the strength of the killed beasts is seeping into their bodies! From other clans! This unnecessary carnage is doing great harm to the hunters! At daylight they reached the cliff hollowed out with niches. Jaipur congratulates his brothers! The blood of the round moon allowed them to capture their enemies! The leader of the “Vampire Men” had seized the ivory knife. Ha-ha-ha! Your weapon could do nothing against our strength, “Fire hair”! Page Twelve. Because Rahan never uses it against “Those-Who-Walk-Upright”! But if his hands were not tied. Rahan would prove to the "vampires" that he does not need to drink blood to defeat Jaipur! Argh! Jaipur had struck with such violence that the son of Crao was thrown five steps away! You will regret these sacrilegious words! And the colossus rushed, pressing all its weight on his face. Jaipur could crush your face like one. He says no more. Rahan's teeth could become a formidable weapon! Argh! Page thirteen. And the grip of his hands, even when restrained, resisted powerfully. They brutally twisted the thick ankle. Argh! And the brute, stunned, did not even realize what followed. And you were talking about crushing Rahan's face? Argh! The tied fists fell like a double club! Jaipur collapsed before the eyes of its stunned men. You are going to die "Hair of fire"! Usually we spare our captives. Usually we only drink the blood of wild animals. But we will make an exception for you! You will have your throat cut next night! Jaipur will drink your blood and your strength will become his! Page Fourteen. Rahan was isolated from the other captives and abandoned in one of the highest niches of the strange troglodyte village. We had doubled our ties. In a lower niche, Arko, Broak and Congh were free to move around. By triumphing over Jaipur, Rahan showed the vampires the stupidity of their belief! We must do everything to save him! For once, Arko is right. But how to deliver him? However. Rahan will not let himself bleed like an animal! The son of Crao had just imagined a way to join his companions. But barely had he tied the vine to a “Step” of the ladder than. Jaipur orders that your throat be slit immediately! Page Fifteen. With a sudden relaxation, Rahan threw himself into space, in front of the assegai! Ra-ha-ha! Suspended on the vine, he returned towards the cliff like a pendulum. And he found himself as expected, with his companions! Quickly! Quickly! Untie the bonds of Rahan! Jaipur was vociferous. “Fire hair” challenges us once again. Kill him! Kill him and his friends! Clamors rang out in the “Corridors.” We can escape them with these lines, like you did! Rahan will not abandon his knife to Jaipur! Page Sixteen. The son of Crao was already climbing the ladder to the upper "floor." Go, brother, we will take care of these blood drinkers! The “Vampires” that appeared in the niche. They were expelled by an unusual route! Argh! And their leader had another surprise on his side. This is your last daring, “Fire hair”! Rahan avoided the blow. But his dodge took him right to the edge of the niche. As Jaipur charged him again, he only had the resource of dropping to the ground. Page Seventeen. Carried away by his momentum, Jaipur stumbled against his body. And. Argh! The fight stopped immediately. The "Vampires" did not flinch when Rahan recovered his knife from the corpse of the one they had believed to be invulnerable. The same evening. The Vampires will no longer massacre our game! Rahan proved to them that the blood of wild animals. Did not give them any power! They will leave this territory! And behind Congh the Chief, our clan will live happily! That is enough! Broak will make the clan happier than you! You see, the bickering is starting again! Page Eighteen. No, grandfather! You said. “That to avoid any spirit of revenge, an elected leader should ignore those who opposed him!” And Rahan just had an idea. Let those who want Congh as their leader place a white pebble in this jar. Supporters of Broak a black. Arko's, a gray. The one with the greatest number of stones of their color will be accepted as leader by the whole clan! But he will always be ignorant of those who did not prefer him! Rahan's suggestion rallied everyone. This was why, shortly after, each member of the clan placed a pebble in the jar. The son of Crao perhaps had a preference that he did not express. Besides, he was confident. He had been able to appreciate the loyalty and courage of Arko, Broak and Congh. He knew that this clan, whoever the elected leader was, would be well guided!

Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html Source of Rahan Comics: Philippe Ropers. https://vk.com/topic-203785966_47424128 Rahan. Episode One Hundred and Six. By Roger Lecureux, drawn by Andre Cheret. The son of the ferocious ages. The impossible capture. The child's cries had alerted the son of Crao. He saw again the orangutan disappearing into the undergrowth. Rahan will not let you torment that little man, “Four Hands”! Rahan! The monkey only had time to drop its victim and grab a branch. Ha-ha-ha! Rahan faced much more agile "Four-Handers" than you! The orangutan must have been old and solitary, because his gestures were awkward. Page Two. Suddenly diving, Rahan managed to land a blow. But the ivory blade only grazed the four hands thigh. Ra-ha-ha! And he felt like his head was flashing like a "Wood-Fruit"! Argh! When he came to, dawn was turning the sky red. Hum. The "Four-hands" defended itself better than Rahan thought! The "Four-Hands" of his age no longer live in the trees. His trail will be easy to follow! Rahan will find the little man! The tracks in fact led him to a cave from which a child's babbling rose. Come out of your lair "Four-Hands"! Rahan is waiting for you! A reee, gue, gueu. As his challenge remained unanswered, he rushed forward, ready for a new fight but. Gone! But he could come back at any moment! Page Three. He must have stolen this spear from a hunter! So a clan must be camping nearby! Rahan will bring you back to your people, little man! It was not a camp that the son of Crao discovered shortly afterwards, but a village! Who? Who is this hunter? Look! He brings us back Jougha! “Outang” took her away tonight! I was going to go hunting to finish once and for all with this "Four-hands" who constantly defies us! The chief spoke angrily of this monkey who, every night, harassed the clan with stone throwing, then disappeared into the forest. Rahan found this little man in the den of a four-hands! May the gods of the hunt accompany you, fire-hair! Jougha is our son! We would have killed it long ago, but Kaouk-the-sorcerer is against it! He says that the death of orangutan would provoke the fury of evil spirits! Page Four. The wizard, limping, came out of his isolated hut. The kidnapping of Jougha is a warning! This night, “Outang” attacked your son. But soon he will attack our hunters! We must flee this territory as quickly as possible, Zarac! No, Kaouk! I repeat that this territory is too rich in game for us to abandon it! Rahan sensed that there was a rivalry between the sorcerer and the clan leader. You will be able to hunt "Outang” from this forest without killing him!? At first we tried to capture him alive. But "Outang" is more cunning than our hunters! We were never able to approach him and he knew. Avoid all our traps! It is because it is sent by evil spirits! Rahan does not believe in evil spirits! This four-hander almost killed him! Rahan will make him account for himself! I will be by your side, Rahan! I will make “Outang” pay for the fear we experienced last night! A murmur of worry ran through the clan. You are the boss, Zarac! And I cannot oppose your will! But. Do not forget that if "Outang" dies the curse will fall on the clan! Page Five. As the wizard limped back to his hut, Zarac reassured his people. We will not kill "Outang" brothers! We will capture him alive, then we will ship him on a raft, to other territories! A little later. It was in this cave that Rahan found his son. “Outang” is wary. He must have sensed our approach! The den, indeed, was deserted. The spear Rahan had noticed had disappeared. Rahan has never seen a four-hander use a spear before! They had barely come out of the cave when. Argh! They only caught a glimpse of the orangutan disappearing into the thick undergrowth. He, He almost killed you! It was you he wanted to kill, Zarac! They searched in vain for traces of the monkey. You were right! “Outang” is as cunning as a hunter! Kaouk will be happy about our failure! Page Six. As night fell, cries rose from the village. It is “Outang”! He challenges the clan, like every night! Maybe we can approach him this time!? Indeed, an instant later. Look at it! It always appears in the same place! The great ape, at the edge of a ravine, threw stones towards the hunters. Hum. The ravine ahead. The clearing behind. It is difficult to approach him without arousing his suspicion! But Rahan will try! The son of Crao could crawl as silently as a snake. But he could not stop the movement of the tall grass. As soon as these waved, betraying his approach, the monkey fled! We tried everything. The Pits! The Nets! It still eludes us! Always! Always! Rahan could not hide his bitterness. Those-who-walk-upright are, however, more intelligent than the "Four-Hands"! “Outang” is not a “Four-hands” like the others! Page Seven. Their return was greeted with coldness. Your stubbornness irritates our hunters, Zarac! For the first time, they talked about replacing you! And Kaouk will take charge of the clan! He is been jealous of me for ages! But what are you thinking Rahan? “Outang” threw the spear at you! It was your son he kidnapped, probably to lure you into the forest and kill you. Perhaps “Outang” obeys Kaouk! Perhaps Kaouk created this “Four Hands” to get rid of you without being accused by the clan? You are losing your mind, Rahan! We will find out tomorrow! Rahan will find a way to capture "Outang"! Rahan, that night, meditated for a long time. “Outang” always appears in the same place. But it is impossible to approach him! Page Eight. To surprise him, a trap would have to fall from the sky! Oh! A trap falling from the sky! Yes that is it! That is it! A little later. Rahan knows how to capture "Outang" alive, Zarac! But he needs your help! But Kaouk and the others must know nothing. For the moment! Dawn found the two companions busy not far from the ravine. By relaxing, the bamboos will send the net onto the “Outang”! Let us try! The net, a catapult, immediately tangled and fell nearby. Hum, It is too light. It will work! Rahan has another idea! You would not have captured "Outang"! Your trap does not work! The sun was blazing when Zarac returned to the village, alone. Rahan wanted to leave our territory! I accompanied him to the big track! Page Nine. You should have imitated him, Zarac! Ours are tired of your obstinacy! You will end up being banned! Hum, we will see. For Zarac, as for Rahan lying in ambush near his trap, it was a long wait but night finally came. Here it is! Emerging from the thickets "Outang" approached the ravine. With a beating heart, the son of Crao estimated the distance. Not yet, not yet. And suddenly. That’s it! Suddenly released, the bamboos catapulted the heavy stones. Which lead to the widely deployed mesh! The orangutan was not quick enough to avoid this trap which was "Falling from the sky"! Entangled in the net, he struggled in vain. Ra-ha-ha! Rahan will throw you into the ravine. Page Ten. The monkey spoke. The monkey screamed like a man! No! No! Do not do that! Not the ravine! Not the ravine! Kaouk! Your people will not forgive you for this deception, Kaouk! But Rahan did not share the astonishment of the clan, gathered on the other side of the ravine, and smiled mischievously. An instant later a clamor arose. By claiming that “Outang” was the envoy of evil spirits, Kaouk hoped that you would abandon this territory! And by removing Jougha he wanted to attract Zarac and kill him! He would then have accused "Outang" and taken the head of the clan! But Rahan suspected Kaouk! He had noticed that the “Outang” was not very agile for a "Four-hander"! Then there was this injury. Rahan had just injured “Outang” in the thigh! Yes, Rahan suspected Kaouk. But he wanted to unmask this deceiver in front of you! Rahan achieved this thanks to the flying trap! At that moment, the son of Crao would have been acclaimed if he had thrown Kaouk into the ravine! But the idea did not even occur to him! The right to judge and punish belonged to the clan!

The Adventures of Mabel. Harry Peck, 1896 A Puke (TM) Audiobook One. The Green Lizard. Once upon a time there was a little girl named Mabel, who lived in a cottage with her Grandma, and her brother Walter, and Jane the cook. The cottage was not very near any other houses, but was away out beyond the village and near a large wood. The wood was very big, and the trees in it were great tall trees all covered with leaves, and having thick vines around them, so that even in the middle of the day it was shady and cool, and when the sun began to go down it was so dark that you could hardly see. Mabel loved the big woods because when the sun was hot she could go under the trees and play on the moss in the shade of the branches, and there was a lovely little brook there with real fishes in it, and sometimes Mabel would go in wading, and the little fishes would swim around her feet and make believe bite them, but they didn't really bite, because they were such little fishes and hadn't any teeth. And ever so far down in the woods, where it was very shady, Mabel used to find strawberries growing, and blackberries, and little red checkerberries all under the green leaves. One day, late in the afternoon, when the sun grew very hot, Mabel was tired of playing with her dolls, so she got a little basket and said to Grandma. "Grandma, may I go down in the woods and see if I can pick some strawberries for supper?" "It's pretty late,” said Grandma, "but you can go if you won't wander too far away and be out after dark. You know, Mabel, there are animals in the woods that might hurt you, and they come out from their caves as soon as it begins to grow dark." "Oh, I’m not afraid of animals!” said Mabel," and I won't be late. I’ll pick you a basketful of strawberries and then I’ll come straight home." So off she went, with her little sun-bonnet on her head and with her basket on her arm, down into the big shady woods. When she reached them she strolled along under the trees over the beautiful soft moss, where the shadows made it nice and cool, and where the birds perched under the thick leaves and sang when they saw her coming, for they all remembered Mabel, and liked to see her playing around in the woods. Pretty soon she looked for the place where the strawberries were, and she picked and picked, and went further and further into the bushes, until she had gone a long way, and had filled her little basket nearly full of ripe red berries. And as she picked, the sun sank down behind the hills, and the evening began to come on, and the little frogs in the brook came out of their holes and peeped. "Gracious!" said Mabel, all of a sudden, “it's getting late. I must go home right straight off." But just as she had picked up her basket and was looking for her sun-bonnet on the ground, she heard a queer little sound like the squeak of a mouse. "What's that?" said Mabel, and she looked all around her to see where it was. But there was nothing that she could find, only the same queer little squeak kept on, as though some one was hurt and was crying with pain. Mabel looked up into the trees, and peered around in the grass, and looked among the bushes, but she couldn't find out where it was. "Well!" she said, "that's funny!" and she stooped down to pick up her sunbonnet: when all of a sudden right at her feet she saw what it was that was making the noise. There, down in the moss, was a little bit of a lizard about as long as Mabel's finger. It was bright green, and had a little yellow spot on its head like a gold crown, and when it saw Mabel looking down, it squeaked again as loud as it could. "Dear me!" said Mabel. "What’s the matter, little lizard? Don't you feel well?" And then she saw what the trouble was A big stone had fallen on the end of the lizard's tail, and held it down so tight that the lizard couldn't get away. "Why, you poor little lizard!" cried Mabel. "Here, I’ll help you." So she took both her plump little hands and gave the stone a big push, and away it went off from the lizard's tail. The lizard jumped up and whisked his tail around and felt of it to see if it was broken. When he found that the tail was all right, he climbed up on the stone and looked up into Mabel's face. "You are a good girl," said the lizard. He had a pleasant voice and a very good looking face, only his nose was rather long. "Why, I didn't know that lizards could talk!" said Mabel. "I can," said the lizard, "I am the King of all the Lizards. Don't you see my crown?" And he pointed with one foot to the little yellow spot on the top of his head. "I can talk and I can do other things, and I’m going to do something for you, because you were so good to me and because you rolled the stone off my tail." "Oh," said Mabel, politely, "you’re quite welcome. I hope your tail isn't hurt." "Not a bit," said the lizard," and see here, I’m going to do something for you that I wouldn't do for any other little girl. I’m going to make you so that you can understand animal talk, and so that all the animals will understand you when you talk. And besides, I’m going to teach you how to make all animals good to you." "How’s that?" asked Mabel. "This way, just listen," and the lizard puffed out his cheeks and began to whistle a little call It was like this. "Now," said he, "you do it after me." So Mabel puckered up her lips and tried to whistle the call, but she had never learned how to whistle and so she only gave a funny little wheeze that made the lizard laugh so that he nearly fell off the stone. "Try again,” said the lizard, after he had got his face straight once more. So Mabel tried again and again. She made more little wheezes and she puffed and blew until she was nearly out of breath, and by and by she did make a noise that sounded something like the call. "Good!" said the lizard. "That’s the way! Try some more." So Mabel tried some more, and pretty soon she could really do it quite well. "Now," said the lizard, "if you want any animal to be your friend, just whistle that way to him. That’s the call of all the animals. Be careful and don't forget it. Good evening." And before Mabel knew what he was doing, the lizard had jumped off the stone and darted down into a hole in the ground. "Well!" said Mabel, "that's the funniest thing I ever heard of. A lizard talking and teaching me to whistle! But dear me! how late it’s getting! I must hurry home as fast as I can." It really was growing very late. The sun had gone away from the sky and the woods were so dark that Mabel could hardly see where she was going. All the little birds had gone into their nests and the butterflies were safe at home. It was very still except for the tree-toads and the frogs in the brook peeping mournfully, and every little while Mabel could hear strange rustlings in the leaves. She tried to remember the way home, but the woods looked so different now that she couldn't think which way to go. She began to be frightened, and all of a sudden, way off in the distance, she heard a long howl. "What’s that?" said Mabel. "Oh, I'm so frightened!" In a minute or two she heard the howl again. "Ow!" A long, wild cry. She knew it must be some animal, and she remembered what her Grandma had said. Again and again she heard it, and she knew that it was coming nearer. She began to run, but the poor little thing had quite lost her way, and she was really getting further and further into the woods. It was so dark that she stumbled over the bushes and the roots of the trees, and twice she fell down. Nearer and nearer came the strange howl, and before long she could hear something moving through the bushes. She was now in an open place where it was a little lighter, and, as she looked back, all of a sudden she saw a great wolf pushing through the underbrush, and coming straight at her. He was twice as big as the biggest dog, and his long red tongue was hanging out of his mouth between his teeth. Mabel thought of Grandma and Walter and how they would never know what had become of her, and then she remembered what the lizard had told her. The wolf was almost touching her and she was frightened to death, but she made up her mind to try to whistle the call. Round she turned and looked right in the wolf's face. She could feel his breath, her lips trembled, but she gave the whistle. "Ow!" said the great wolf, and he stopped as quick as a wink. Mabel whistled again. The wolf put his tongue in his mouth and hung his head down. Then Mabel saw that his face looked very pleasant, and she wasn't afraid any more. After all, he was just like a big dog. "Wolf," said Mabel, "I want you to be my friend!" “It’s All right," said the wolf. He had a big growling voice, and he spoke in wolf-talk, but Mabel could understand what he said. "I’ve lost my way, wolf," said she, "please show me the way home. I live at Grandma's." "I know," said the wolf, "I’ve seen you playing around in the daytime. "Put your hand on my neck and I’ll show you the way." So Mabel put her hand on the wolf's neck and they went along together. His fur was very soft and long, and Mabel rested her hand on it as she walked, for she was very tired. On they went through the woods. The wolf was not much of a talker, and Mabel could not think of anything to say, so they kept very still. At last they got to the edge of the woods. "There!" said the wolf, pointing with his big paw, and Mabel could see through the dark her home with a bright light shining from the window. "Good-bye, wolf," said Mabel. "Thank you very much. I knew you were a good wolf and wouldn't ever hurt little girls, would you?" “No," said the wolf in a rather queer voice, and Mabel thought he looked rather sheepish, and that he hung his head rather low. "Well, good-night," said she, and she put her arms round his big furry neck and gave him a hug. "Oh!" said the wolf, and he licked her hands with his rough tongue, and then trotted back into the dark woods. Mabel's Grandma was standing on the verandah. She was dreadfully worried because Mabel was so late. "Mabel! Mabel!" she called as she looked out into the dark. "Yes, Grandma," said Mabel. And Grandma just rushed down the steps when she heard the little voice, and gave Mabel a whole lot of kisses, for she had been afraid that her little girl would never come back home again. After Mabel had had a fine supper in her high chair in the cozy dining-room, and when Grandma had undressed her and was putting her to bed, she said: "Oh, Grandma, I left my strawberries in the woods!" "Never mind, Mabel," said Grandma. "We can go together to-morrow and get them. But now I want to tell you how frightened I was to have you out so late. Don't you remember I told you how there were animals in the woods? Well, this afternoon, your Uncle Robert was here and he said that only yesterday, when he was going along the path, he saw something in the bushes that looked like a wolf! Think of that!" “Oh," said Mabel, "I don't believe a wolf would hurt a little girl, do you, Grandma?" "What, a wolf?" said Grandma. "Why, Mabel, a wolf is the worst animal in the world! If you had met a wolf he would have eaten you all up, every bit of you!" Mabel didn't say anything, but she laughed a little to herself, and then turned over in her crib and curled up on her soft white pillow and went fast asleep. Two. The Taming of Rex. The next morning Mabel came down late to breakfast. She remembered what had happened the day before, but it seemed to her like a dream, and she could scarcely believe that she had really seen the talking Lizard and the good old Wolf. But she remembered the call, and before she got out of bed she whistled it over two or three times very softly to herself. While she was eating her bowl of oatmeal and an egg, Grandma, who had finished her own breakfast, said "Mabel, did you hear your Uncle Robert come in last night after you had gone to bed." "No, Grandma. Was he here?" "Yes, he spent the whole evening with me, and he told me about a horse that he’s bought. He's having ever so much trouble with it." "Why? What’s the matter, Grandma?" "Oh, it’s such a strange horse. Uncle Robert bought him yesterday because he was such a beauty, a great splendid black animal, but now they have found that no one can ride him. When any one goes up to put on his bridle, he starts up on his hind legs and kicks and rears and then runs across the meadow. Uncle Robert thinks that he’ll have to sell him again or else give him away." "Oh, that would be a pity, wouldn't it, Grandma? I do love horses so! May I go down to Uncle Roberts and see him, please?" "Yes, after breakfast, only don't stay very long, and don't go too near the horse, because he might kick you." So after Mabel had finished her egg, she slipped down from her high chair and got Grandma to put on her little coat and her straw hat, and off she went down the road. Uncle Robert's house was about half a mile away, and when Mabel came near she saw him walking up and down the front yard, talking to John the man. "Hullo, Mabel!" said Uncle Robert, when he saw her. "Going to make me a visit?" Yes, Uncle Robert," said Mabel." Grandma said I might come down and see the new horse." "Oh," said Uncle Robert." So she told you about the horse, did she? Well, he's an awful bother to me. John and I were just going out to the meadow to try him again to see if we can't put a bridle on him and make him mind. You know yesterday he wouldn't let us go near him. Come on, and let’s take a look at him." So John got the bridle, and they all walked down to the meadow back of the barn, Mabel following along behind, trying to keep up, with her short little legs. There in the middle of the meadow was a great big black horse quietly eating grass and swishing his tail around to keep off the flies. He was a splendid looking horse, with a long black mane, and a glossy coat that shone in the sunlight as though it had been polished with a blacking-brush. When he saw that some one was coming into the field he cocked his head a little to one side and sniffed, but kept right on biting at the clover. "Oh, isn't he a beauty!" cried Mabel. "What's his name?" "The man who sold him to me said his name was Rex," answered Uncle Robert, "and he is a beauty to look at, only he's got an awfully bad temper. I wonder if he’s any quieter to-day. Here, John, give me the bridle and I’ll tackle him first." So Uncle Robert took the bridle and walked very, very slowly into the meadow Rex didn't stir, but kept on quietly eating. Nearer and nearer and nearer came Uncle Robert, creeping along as softly as he could. "I guess he’ll get him this time," said John to Mabel. Uncle Robert was now almost up to Rex's head. He spread out the bridle and took the bit in his right hand and made one more move forward. In half a jiffy he would have had the reins over the horse's neck, when, bang! all of a sudden, just like lightning, up went Rex's head, he snorted a tremendous snort and stood straight up on his hind legs, then he gave a terrific jump into the air, kicked out his heels, and tore away through the grass, plunging and cavorting like a crazy horse. "Pah!" said John, "he's just as bad as ever!" Uncle Robert tried again and again, but Rex wouldn't let him come anywhere near him. He kicked and pranced and galloped about the field, until at last Uncle Robert gave it up and came back to where Mabel and John were standing. His hat had blown off, and he was puffing and panting, and his face was as red as a beet. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. "The ugly beast!" he said. "What did I ever buy him for? He makes me so mad I could shoot him!" "Let me try him, sir," said John. "Perhaps he’s tired of running now." Then John took the bridle out of Uncle Robert's hand, and started out in his turn. Rex had stopped running, and was eating clover again, as quietly as you please. He cocked his head as John crept up, but didn't budge an inch. "Whoa!" said John, as quietly as he could. "Whooa, old horse, whooa!" Rex kept very still. John was now at his head, and was just about to slip the bridle on when, bang! up went Rex in the air again, slash went his heels straight out as he turned. His hoofs with their iron shoes flew within an inch of John's ear. If they had struck him they would have knocked his head clean off." Ow! ow!" cried John, frightened half to death. "If he'd kicked me, I'd have been a dead man!" Then he hurried back to where Uncle Robert and Mabel stood, while Rex went galloping around the meadow again, snorting like mad. "Isn't that the worst beast you ever saw?" cried Uncle Robert, who was dreadfully vexed. "I’ll sell him or give him away this very afternoon!" Mabel kept very still for a moment Then she looked up into Uncle Roberts face, and said in her soft little voice," Uncle Robert, will you let me try to put his bridle on?" Uncle Robert stared at her till his eyes nearly popped out of his head. He was too surprised to speak at first, and then he began to laugh. "Ha, ha!" he said. "What, you try to put a bridle on him? Ha, ha! that's a good joke!" "Ho, ho!" roared John. "Well, that's the best I ever heard!" "May I, Uncle Robert?" said Mabel. “Why, Mabel," said he, "it's perfect nonsense for a little girl like you to think of such a thing. The idea of your managing a big ugly horse! "Sure," said John, "you're only a little baby yet, and the horse would eat you up or kick you way across the lot." "Well," said Mabel, "I couldn't do any worse than you did, anyhow!" Mabel was angry. She didn't like to be called a baby when she was nearly six years old. Then she turned to Uncle Robert and said "Please, please let me try." Uncle Robert laughed again. "Well, Mabel," he said, "he’ll just run away when you go near him, so it won't do any particular harm, but you're a silly little girl to think that you can do what John and I couldn't. Why, you're so small you’ll make the horse laugh to see you coming up to him with a bridle." "Never mind," said Mabel, stoutly. "I'd like to see a horse laugh. If I can't put his bridle on him I’ll come back again." So she swung the bridle over her little arm and started out through the clover. She was so small that the clover-blossoms came up almost to her neck, and her fluffs of yellow hair touched them as she walked along. It was a pretty picture that she made, moving through the thick green grass, and perhaps this was why Rex stopped munching clover long before she came near him, and began looking at the little figure that was marching straight toward him as he stood with his head high up in the air. Perhaps, though, he thought that he could frighten her when he saw how small she was, for he pawed the ground and snuffed the air, and shook his mane at her, and when she came near him he began to lash his tail as though he were very fierce. But Mabel looked up at him and held out her hand, and as he lifted his hoofs she whistled the Lizard's call. Rex stopped as though he had been shot. He pricked up his ears and looked at her very hard. Then Mabel whistled the call once more. "Good old horsey," she said to him. "You won't run away from me and be a bad horse, will you?" Then she whistled the call for the third time. Rex put his head down low and gave a long soft whinny. "Come here, Rex," said Mabel, and the big horse walked quietly up to her, and rubbed his nose on her cheek, whinnying all the time as gently as if he had been only a little colt. Uncle Robert and John couldn't believe their eyes. They were too far away to hear her whistle the call, so they just stood there and wondered how on earth Mabel was making friends with the horse. “Open your mouth, Rex," said Mabel. He opened his mouth, and she slipped the bit in between his teeth. Then she drew the bridle over his ears and fastened the strap as she had often seen men do when they harnessed horses. "Now, Rex," said Mabel, after she had patted his nose and smoothed his neck," I want you to come up to the fence, so that I can climb up on your back and ride you." Rex whinnied again and walked slowly up to the high stone wall near by. Then Mabel clambered up on the wall, and from the wall she crept upon Rex's broad back and took hold of the reins. When he felt her sitting on him he stood up in the air on his hind legs; but he did it so slowly that Mabel didn't mind it, for it felt as though she was on a big rocking chair, and she held on tight by the reins and Rex's mane. Then, when all his four feet were on the ground again, she spoke to him once more, and he started off with her across the meadow to the place where Uncle Robert and John were standing. As soon as he got there he stopped and stood beside them perfectly still with Mabel laughing on his back. "O Mabel, Mabel!" cried Uncle Robert, whose eyes were as big as saucers. "How in the world did you manage to do it? Why, it's the most wonderful thing I ever saw in my life! Wonderful! Wonderful!" "Oh, I just spoke to him, Uncle Robert, and he minded me all right," said Mabel. "I think he likes little girls." He seems to," said Uncle Robert, still wondering. "Am I a little baby now, John?" asked Mabel. "Sure, Miss Mabel," said John, "I’ll never call you a little baby again. You’re bigger than the biggest man I ever saw!" "Well," said Mabel after a little while. "help me down, please, Uncle Robert. Rex is good now, and you can ride him all you want to." "No, no," answered Uncle Robert. "You have done such a wonderful thing with him that I think he ought to belong to you after this, so I'm going to give him to you." "What, to keep? For my ownty own?" "Yes," said Uncle Robert." If Grandma will let you have him, you can keep him for your own horse to ride on always. I think you deserve to have him. And I’ll get you a little girl's saddle and send it down to the house for you." "Oh, goody!" cried Mabel, and she jumped so with joy that she nearly fell off Rex's back. "Would you like to be my own horse, Rex?" Rex gave a loud whinny. "Thank you ever so much, Uncle Robert. You are awfully good. May I ride him home now, this very minute, to show Grandma?" "Of course," said Uncle Robert "Only hold on tight." So Mabel spoke to Rex and off they went, slowly cantering down the road to Grandma's. Grandma was standing in the yard watering her flower-beds, when all of a sudden she heard a horse's hoofs clattering along the hard road. She turned around and looked, and then she saw a big black horse coming straight toward her in a cloud of dust. Her eyes were not very good, and at first she did not see that there was any one riding him. "Dear me!" she said to herself. "That must be Robert's new horse. I wonder if he's broken loose and run away." But in a minute she noticed something like a little white bundle perched up on his back, and a second or two later she saw that it was Mabel, laughing away as she rode the great horse right through the gateway and over the lawn till she stopped him at Gandma's side. "Mabel! Mabel!" cried out Grandma. "You on a horse's back? Why, how can you ride like that? Aren't you afraid of falling off?" "Oh, no!" said Mabel. "It's lots of fun! And, Grandma, Uncle Robert has given me Rex for my ownty own horse to keep as long as I live, and please let me have him. There's room in the barn for him, and I’ll feed him every day and take good care of him, and oh, won't it be lovely!" "Dear me! dear me!" said Grandma, who didn't know what to make of it all." I never heard of such a little girl riding a big horse. Why, Mabel, it's wonderful!" "That's what Uncle Robert said," answered Mabel. "But you will let me, won't you?" "Why, yes," said Grandma." But I'm so surprised, I don't know what to say. Dear, dear!" But by this time Mabel had ridden Rex to the barn, and climbed down off his back on the chicken-coop, and had led him into an old stall. Then she got a rope for his halter and tied him to the manger. Her brother Walter, who didn't yet know what it all meant, helped her put straw in the stall for a bed, and got a pail of water. Then Mabel pulled a lot of grass for Rex's dinner and got Jane to give her a plate of turnips for him and some salt, and when she had heard Grandma tell a man to bring a bag of oats and some hay, she felt that at last she owned a real, live horse. But she told no one about the Lizard's call, for it was a secret, and she felt that perhaps the Lizard wouldn't like to have her tell it. Three. The Frogs at the Bridge. Mabel was very happy with Rex, and every day she took more and more pleasure in him. Each morning she would run out to see him before breakfast, and when he saw her coming he would neigh and stamp. Then, after she had had her own breakfast, she would go again to the barn to feed him. She always piled his manger full of sweet smelling hay, and mixed his oats and his meal with her own little hands, and she fed him bundles of rich clover, and pieces of apple, and bits of fresh green cornstalks. Mabel and Rex were the best of friends. Mabel loved to perch upon the manger and rub his nose and talk to him by the hour, smoothing out his long mane and combing his forelock, and he in his turn would put his great head against her face and neigh softly as she petted him. After Rex had eaten his hay and his oats, John from Uncle Robert's would come down and curry him with a curry-comb, and put Mabel's new saddle on him, and then she would climb up on his back and start out for her morning ride. She almost always rode in the same direction: down the lane past a house where a cross dog lived, then over the bridge that crossed a pretty little brook, then up a hill past a field where there was a mooly-cow, and another house where Mabel often saw a kitty-cat sitting in the front yard, and finally down a long lane that went through the woods till she came out into the open country where a little pig lived in a small red house. There were other roads that went to the right and to the left of this road, but Mabel did not try any of them, because she did not yet know the way very well, and was afraid of getting lost. She loved to ride down the lane that went through the woods, for it was so shady when the sun was hot, and all the birds and squirrels and tree-toads that lived there knew her. Sometimes when she looked down through the long green thickets she could see the Good Wolf lying among the tangled leaves, and she always called out to him, and he spoke back to her in a very gruff, but good-natured voice. When Rex first saw the big black wolf-head sticking out of the bushes, and heard the growl, he used to feel frightened, and would snort and stamp, but after he found out that Mabel knew the Wolf, and that the Wolf was very friendly with Mabel, he left off being afraid, and would whinny to the great black creature whenever he saw him. In Mabel’s morning rides she often stopped Rex in the woods and climbed down from his back, to pick berries or lie on the moss under the trees. Rex would always wait for her, so that she did not have to tie him. While she was playing about under the trees, he would nibble the sweet grasses that grew by the roadside, and now and then would put his head over the fence and neigh in a friendly manner to his little mistress, who always answered him in her cheery little way. Since she had learned to know animal-talk she had come to take a great interest in all kinds of animals, for they no longer seemed strange to her, but just like little brothers, and when she talked with them they could now understand her, so that even the wildest of the squirrels and the shyest of the rabbits in the bushes would come out to meet her and eat out of her hands the nuts and acorns and tender green leaves that she picked for them. When she lay on the moss, they played about her without the slightest fear, running and jumping over her head, or nestling down by her face and taking a long nap beside her. In the brook where the bridge was, there lived a family of frogs. There was the big green papa-frog, and a mamma-frog, and five little baby-frogs. They often sat upon stones in the middle of the brook and croaked to Mabel in their funny little voices as she went by, and she got to know them all very well. One day all seven of the frogs were out in the middle of the bridge fast asleep in the sun when Mabel came riding along. They were right in the way, and Mabel was afraid that if she tried to cross the bridge Rex might step on some of them and crush them. So she stopped him and cried out to them. "Wake up, frogs!" she said. "Come, wake up! I want to go by." But the frogs didn't hear her and slept straight on. Mabel called and called again, but still they didn't hear. At last she rode Rex up to the stone fence near by and slipped down from his back. Then she walked up to the big green frog and took him by his fore-foot. "Come, Frog!" she said. "Wake up! You’ll get stepped on." The Big Frog woke up all of a sudden, with a start. At the same time all the other frogs woke up. They saw some one bending over them, and at first thought it was a bad boy who was going to catch them and put them in a bag and sell them to some cook who would cut off their hind-legs and fry them. So, without waiting to see anything more, they all gave a big jump and went splash! plunk! plunge! down into the brook as hard as ever they could go. Pretty soon, however, they popped their heads out, and there they saw Mabel climbing up on her horse again. Then they knew how good she had been, and how she had taken all that trouble to get down and wake them up for fear they should be hurt. The Big Frog swam up to a large flat stone that stood out of the water, and as Mabel rode by on the bridge, he puffed up his cheeks and said in frog-talk and in his croakiest voice." Thank you! Thank you!" "All right, Frog," said Mabel. "Only don't go to sleep on the bridge again, or next time some one may come along and walk on you, and smash you all into little pieces." Then she spoke to Rex and went galloping away home. The next morning it began to rain, so that Mabel could not take her ride. It rained all day, harder and harder, and when night came it just poured great sheets of water. The next day it was just the same, rain, rain, rain. Mabel stayed in the house and played with her dolls, and wished the rain would stop. Early on the third day she got out of bed and went to the window. The rain was over, and the sun was shining, and everything glittered in the bright light. "Oh, goody!" cried Mabel. "Now I can go out on Rex again!" So she went down to the barn the first thing after breakfast, and as soon as Rex was fed and curried and saddled, up she got on his back and cantered out of the yard for a good long ride. Down the road she went past the Cross Dog's house, down the long hill, till at last she came to the bridge over the brook. Then she saw that the rain had filled the brook full, and had swollen it out and made it almost as big as a river. The water was high up, almost touching the bridge, and it rushed along all foamy and swift, roaring as it went. "Dear me!" said Mabel. "Why, I never saw so much water before in my life!" Just then she noticed that the seven frogs were all out of the water and were squatting across the road in a line just in front of the bridge. They reached all the way over the road so that Mabel could not get to the bridge without riding over them. "Good morning, frogs," said Mabel. “How big your brook is this morning! Come now, please get out of the road so that I can ride over the bridge." But the seven frogs never budged, but just hitched up their shoulders and blinked. "Come, frogs!" said Mabel again, very much surprised. "Don't sit there in the way. Can't you see that Rex will step on you if I try to get past?" But the frogs never stirred, and only hitched up their shoulders and blinked again very hard. Mabel began to be angry with them. "You stupid frogs!" cried she. "Come! hop away, quick! I want to go over the bridge." Then the frogs all puffed out their cheeks and croaked in frog-talk. "No! No!" "Why, frogs!" said Mabel. "What do you mean? Do you want to spoil my ride? Aren't you going to let me cross the bridge?" And the seven frogs all said in frog-talk. “No! No!" Mabel was astonished. "Dear me!" said she. "I don't know what you want. Is anything the matter with you?" They acted so strangely that Mabel rode up to the fence and got down off Rex and walked up to the frogs. When she came near the bridge all the frogs hopped in front of her and held up their fore-feet and croaked as hard as they could. "What, don't you want me to go over the bridge?" she asked. "Is anything the matter with it? Tell me about it, frogs." The frogs all hitched up their shoulders and blinked very hard indeed. But they did not say anything, for frogs cannot talk very much, only a few short words. Mabel went to the side of the road and picked up a big stone, as heavy as she could lift. She carried it up to the bridge and threw it down on the planks, bang! No sooner had the stone touched it than, crack! The whole bridge fell to pieces and went down with a splash into the brook. The water swept over it in a minute and carried it away, hissing and foaming. Then Mabel saw that the brook had been so swollen by the rain that it had washed away all the posts that held the bridge up, and that if she had ridden on it, she would have broken through and fallen down into the deep water and been drowned. The frogs all croaked very loud. "Oh, you good little frogs!" cried Mabel. "You knew that the posts were gone, didn't you, and wanted to keep me out of danger? Why, you have saved my life!" The frogs hitched up their shoulders, and as they blinked they all laughed together. "Dear, dear little frogs!" cried Mabel. "Thank you ever so much for being so good!” And she stooped down and patted all their seven green heads one after another. They all croaked in a satisfied way, and then gave a big hop, and went splash! plunk! plunge! down into the brook again as hard as ever they could. Mabel climbed up on Rex once more and rode back home. On the way she met man, and told him that the bridge had broken down, so before long a party of men came and built a new bridge, with stone pillars underneath it, so strong that the brook could never wash it away again. Four. The Robbers. One morning Mabel sat eating her breakfast with Grandma and Walter, when she heard a sort of knock at the front door. "What's that?" said she, "the postman?” "Oh, no," said Grandma. "The postman always whistles. I don't think it’s anything at all." But pretty soon another knock was heard, and something began to scratch on the door, and whine. "Let me go and see who it is," said Mabel, and she jumped down from her high chair and ran to the door. When she opened it what should she see but a large black dog standing on the doormat and scratching the door with one paw. He was a dog that looked as though he had been badly treated by some one and had run away. He was very thin, so that his bones stuck out all over him, and his eyes were sunk deep down in his poor bony head. He was all splashed with mud, and his hair was matted close to his body. When he saw Mabel, he crouched down as though he thought she was going to beat him, and whined pitifully. "What do you want, doggie?” asked Mabel. Her voice was so kind and she looked so pleasant that the dog knew that she was not going to hit him, and he wagged his tail feebly and began to lick her hand. "Poor old dog," said Mabel. "You look awfully hungry. See, Grandma, here's a dog." Grandma came to the door and looked at him. "Oh, what a miserable, dirty-looking dog!” she said. "Come in, Mabel, and shut the door. Perhaps he's an ugly dog and will bite you." "Ah, no, he won't," cried Mabel. "And, Grandma, let me give him some breakfast. I don't think he's a bad-looking dog at all. He's only muddy because he's been running along the roads. You wouldn't bite me, would you, doggie?” The dog put his nose up into the air and gave three loud barks, as if to say. "No! No! No!” "There, Grandma, I knew he wouldn't! Come now, let me give him something to eat." So Mabel went to the breakfast-table and got a big plate. On it she put three or four chop-bones with plenty of meat on them, a large piece of omelet, some bread, and a bit of buttered toast. Then she carried the plate out to the verandah and set it down beside the dog. Oh, how he wagged his tail and jumped when he saw it! But, hungry as he was, he wouldn't touch a scrap of food till he had licked Mabel's hand again as if to thank her for being so good to him. Then he just rushed at the plate, for he was nearly starved, and ate and ate as hard as ever he could. First, he gnawed every bit of meat off the chop-bones, then he gobbled the omelet, and then the toast. Finally, he licked the plate clean and went back to the bones again, crunching them all into little pieces between his teeth. "Well, you are hungry!” said Mabel. “I’ll give you something more." So she brought him out a large bowl of warm milk with some oatmeal in it, and watched him as he lapped it with his long tongue down to the very last drop. While she was standing there, Grandma came by and looked at him. "Now, Mabel," she said, "as soon as he has finished, drive him away. We don't want such a looking dog as that around." "Oh, he isn't really so bad-looking," answered Mabel. "He's just a little muddy." Grandma went upstairs, and as soon as she was out of sight, Mabel ran into the kitchen and got Jane to give her a large bowl of warm water and a sponge, and a cake of soap. Then Mabel sat down beside the dog and dipped the sponge into the water. "I'm going to give you a nice bath, doggie," said she, and he wagged his tail and stood very still. First, Mabel soaked the sponge full of warm water and wiped off the mud from the dog's face, then she wrung it out and dipped it in the water again and went over his body and his legs, going over and over him till every bit of mud was gone. Then she got a fresh basin of clean water and sponged him all over once more, till he was as clean as he could be, down to the very tips of his black paws and the end of his tail. Last of all, she brought a big clean towel from the kitchen and rubbed him as dry as a bone. "There, doggie!” she said proudly when she had finished. He looked like a different dog. His coat was glossy and smooth, and shone in the sunshine, and he felt so strong and well after his big breakfast that he no longer kept his head down and his tail drooping on the ground, but he held them both high up in the air, and his eyes were as bright as jewels. Just then Grandma came down the front stairs and looked out. "Why, Mabel!" she cried. "Another dog? Where did he come from?” "What do you think of him, Grandma?” asked Mabel, while her eyes twinkled with fun. "Oh, he's a very good-looking dog," said Grandma. "Whose dog is he?” "Ha, ha!" laughed Mabel. "Why, Grandma, it's the same dog that came while we were at breakfast. I've just washed him." Grandma was tremendously surprised. "Well, well!" said she. "I shouldn't have known him." "Now, Grandma," said Mabel, "you see he's a good, handsome dog, so won't you let me keep him? You know there's a dog-house in the yard by the barn, and I could take care of him. Do say yes, Grandma, for I should dearly love to have a dog of my own." "What, a dog?” "Yes, please, Grandma." "Well, I don't know that I care. Only his owner may come for him, and then you’ll have to give him back." "Oh, I don't believe he's got any owner, and if he has, the owner ought to be ashamed for letting him get so hungry and thin." So Mabel kept the dog. When he found that she was going to let him stay, he was wild with joy, and frisked and jumped around like mad, barking and yelping as loud as he could. Mabel took him out to the dog-house, and put some straw in it for his bed, and a large bowl for him to drink out of. "Now," she said," there’s your house, and you must be a good dog. I'm going to call you Towser, because I’ve got a story-book in the house about a dog named Towser, and I like the name." So Towser walked into his new house and curled up on the straw and went fast asleep. The next morning when Mabel took her ride on Rex, Towser ran behind them, and the three were good friends at once. That same afternoon two men walked slowly by the house where Mabel lived. One was a very tall, dark man with a heavy black beard. The other was shorter with a smooth face. Both of them wore slouch hats that partly covered their faces, and high, thick boots. Round their necks they had mufflers of dirty red flannel. Each carried a long, sharp knife in his pocket. They were robbers. As they walked slowly by, the tall robber looked into the yard and saw the stable-door open and Rex inside eating hay out of the manger. "Huh!” said the tall robber. "That's a mighty fine horse. I wish I had him." "Well," said the short robber, "why not steal him? We can come here in the dark to-night and get him out of the barn. I don't believe they lock the door nights." "That’s a good idea," said the tall robber, "and maybe they don't lock the house-doors either, so perhaps we can get in and rob the house." Then, after they had looked very carefully at the barn and at the house, they went away to the place where they lived. It was a small brown house a good many miles away. When they reached it, they went inside and waited till the sun sank down and darkness came on. Then about midnight they got a dark lantern, a bridle, a saddle, and four large towels, and set out through the dark toward Mabel's house. When they came near it, they crouched down by the fence and crept carefully along, keeping very still. On they went till they came to the garden gate. They opened this as quietly as possible, and glided into the yard. The house was all dark. The lights were out and everybody was asleep. "I wonder if the house is locked," whispered the short robber. They crept up to the verandah, and the tall robber fumbled in the dark till he found the door-knob. He turned it and pushed against the door. It was locked. "Pah!" said the robber. The short one tried the windows, but they were locked too. Then they went noiselessly around to the back of the house and tried the kitchen-door and the windows, and the cellar-door, but they were also safely locked. "Say!” said the tall robber. "I'm afraid the stable's locked too." "Let's see," growled the short robber. They made their way silently up to the stable-door. One of them put his hand on the big wooden latch and pushed it. "Ha!" said he. "This ain't locked. Good!” They opened the great barn-door and went inside. When they found themselves safely in, the tall robber took the dark lantern out of his pocket and flashed the light around. There was Rex standing in his stall, half asleep. He opened his eyes when he saw the light, and wondered what was going on, and who these men were. "Come!” said the tall robber, "let's get him out." They untied his halter and led him out of the stable upon the soft grass. Then they took the four thick towels that they had brought, and muffled his hoofs up so that he would not make a clatter in going down the driveway. Next they put on him the bridle and saddle. Poor Rex was still half asleep, and had a sort of notion that they were the blacksmiths men who had come after him, so he kept quiet and let them do whatever they wanted to. Finally, the tall robber got up into the saddle and took the reins, and the short robber climbed up behind him. They clicked to Rex, and he started slowly down the drive to the road. The moment they passed out of the gate and got into the road, the tall robber hit Rex with a piece of rope and away they went at a full gallop. They had stolen Rex and got away safely. Now all this time Towser had been asleep in his dog-house near the barn, but the robbers had moved about very quietly and he had not heard a sound, for he was very tired after his long run with Mabel and Rex in the morning, so that he slept like a top. But when Rex began to gallop down the road, the sound of his hoofs, even though they were muffled up in the towels, startled Towser, and he sat up in the dog-house and looked sleepily out into the darkness. As he did so, he got a glimpse of two figures riding swiftly away down the road and finally disappearing. Then he looked all around and in an instant he saw that the barn-door was wide open. His eyes nearly jumped out of his head. He gave one big growl and ran to the barn and looked in. Rex was gone. Oh, how badly Towser felt then! He knew that Mabel's horse had been stolen, and it made him wild to think he had slept so soundly that he had not waked up and fought the robbers. His heart almost stopped beating. Then he ran as fast as he could to the kitchen-door and struck his head against it, and scratched and whined and yelped and barked as hard as he could. Bangety-bang! he went on the kitchen door, scratchety, scratch, bow wow-wow! Pretty soon Mabel stirred in her bed and half-awoke. She heard the barking and banging and scratching below. "Goodness!" she said to herself. "What’s the matter with Towser?” Bangety-bang! scratchety-scratch! bow-wow-wow!” Why, the poor dog must be sick!” said Mabel. Bangety-bang! scratchety-scratch! bow-wow-wow!” Dear me!” said Mabel, who was now thoroughly awake. "I'd better go down and see what he wants, or he’ll wake up Grandma, and she’ll be angry with him." So up she got in her little nightie, and went pattering down the stairs in her bare feet to the kitchen-door. She turned the key and opened the door, and there was Towser barking and yelping like mad. "What's the matter, Towser?" said Mabel. "What do you want?" For answer, Towser leaped up and put his paws on her shoulders, and then darted off toward the barn. Then he came back and pawed her again, and once more darted off. This he did three or four times, every time barking as loud as he could. Mabel was puzzled. She could not understand what he wanted. "Why, Towser," she said, "I think you're going mad." Just then Walter, who had also been awakened by the noise, came downstairs partly dressed and with a candle in his hand. "Oh, Walter!” cried Mabel. "See how strangely Towser acts! He paws at me and then runs out into the dark, and then runs back and paws at me again. What do you suppose he wants?” “Why, it looks as though he wanted you to go somewhere," said Walter. "Here, I’ll go with him." So Walter went out with the candle, for the night was very still. Towser gave three loud barks and ran straight toward the barn. Walter followed, and in a minute he saw that the barn-door was wide open. He looked in and found that Rex was gone. He hurried back to the kitchen. "Oh, Mabel!” he said, "Rex is gone!” Mabel did not know what to say. "I think he must have broken out," said Walter. "Perhaps you forgot to shut the barn-door." "No, I didn't," said Mabel. "Well, anyhow," said Walter, "I'll go and finish dressing, and then go down to the Farmers house and see what he says." In a few minutes Walter had dressed, and with a lantern in his hand he ran down to the road to the Farmer's house. He knocked at the door and waked up the Farmer, who dressed himself and followed Walter back to the barn. By this time Grandma had come down and heard about what had happened. She dressed Mabel and herself, and they both came out into the yard. The Farmer went into the barn and looked all around by the light of Walter's lantern. "Huh!" he said. "That horse didn't break away, because his halter's here, and it's been untied." Then he went outside again and held the lantern down to the ground. "Footprints!” he said. Then he looked at the grass, and found it all trampled. "Two men have been here," he grunted. "Robbers. The horse has been stolen. You’ll never see him again. Why didn't you have a lock for the barn?” Mabel burst into tears. Her dear Rex stolen! Never to see him again! She cried as though her little heart would break. "It's no use crying," said the Farmer. "By this time he's miles away from here. Well, well, it's a bad business, but there's nothing to be done. Good-night." And he gave the lantern back to Walter and walked off down the road through the darkness to his own house. Grandma carried Mabel up to bed again, and tried her best to comfort her, but the little girl kept sobbing and crying, and would not stop. "Oh, my poor Rex!” she said. "They’ve taken him away, and I’ll never see him anymore. And we had such good times together, the dear, dear thing! And now maybe they won't give him enough to eat, and perhaps they’ll be bad to him." So she cried and cried all night long. Out in the darkness in the yard lay Towser thinking about everything that had happened. He thought how good Mabel had been to him, and how she had given him a nice home, and then he remembered how he had slept too soundly and had not waked up, so that the bad robbers had stolen his little mistress's horse away. "I am no good at all," he said to himself. "Even a poodle would have done better than I did. I ought to be killed." And when it was morning again, and Mabel came down with her eyes all red from crying, he felt worse than ever. She would not eat any breakfast, but went out and sat on the manger just as she used to do when Rex was there, and her tears fell down her cheeks as she thought how she would never see him again. Towser's heart nearly broke with grief as he lay on the grass and watched her cry. All the morning he lay there with his nose between his paws, thinking. When Mabel went back into the house, he still stayed there, keeping his eyes fixed on the barn, and on the marks of the robbers' feet in the dust. Oh, if he could only do something for Mabel! Presently a thought flashed into his head. He noticed the foot-prints further down the drive, and the marks on the grass where the robbers had ridden Rex out of the yard. He pricked up his ears and sat up on his hindlegs. He wagged his tail. "There is something that I can do, after all!” he said. Then he trotted across to the foot-prints and began sniffing at them. He had a keen nose like all dogs, and he sniffed and smelled on the ground for a long time. "I could find them by the smell," thought he. In an instant he began following the hoof-prints on the grass with his nose close to the ground. He didn't stop to think what he could do if he should find the robbers, but he started down the lawn to the front gate still sniffing. He was very eager. His tail was in the air, his eyes were big with excitement, and as he went out of the gate he gave a big bark. One last look behind he gave, and saw Mabel standing by the window drumming with her fingers on the panes and with her eyes still red with tears. She took no notice of Towser as he went by. "Poor little thing!” said he to himself, "I’ll do something for you as sure as I'm a dog!” So out into the road he went, sniffing as hard as ever he could. It was a very hot day, and the sun shone down like fire. It blazed on Towser as he went along the open road, till he was half melted by the heat. The dust flew up into his nose and filled his eyes, and when he opened his mouth to pant, it blew down his throat and choked him. People looked at him curiously as he went nosing his way along, and one bad boy threw a big stone at him and hit him in the hind-leg so that it made him limp at every step. But he kept right on following the trail of Rex. Sometimes he lost it for a few minutes, but he always found it again, and went on, on, on, past the house where the Cross Dog lived, over the bridge where the Frogs sat on the stones in their brook, by the Mooly Cow's house, and the Kitty-Cat's house, through the dark woods where the Good Wolf hunted, beyond the Little Pig's red house, on, on, on, all the afternoon. Late in the day, just as the sun was setting, the hoof-tracks turned aside from the road and seemed to go into a yard. Towser stopped and looked up. It was a great yard with a high stone fence around it, and an iron gate which was half open. Towser peered in and saw a dark gloomy-looking house, with its blinds closed tight, and great bars on the door. Rusty red stains were streaked across the steps. Towser's heart stopped beating. He knew that this must be the robbers' home. He peeped in between the stone gate-posts, and wondered where Rex was, but he did not dare to go in for fear the robbers would kill him. Pretty soon, however, he crept around the outside of the fence, crouching on the grass, until he had gone all the way around to the back of the house, still hidden by the fence. Then he lay down quite worn out. He wanted to look over the fence to see what there was in the back-yard, but he was afraid that the robbers might be there. Before long, however, he could not hold himself in any more, so he stood up on his hind-legs and put his fore-paws on the top of the fence and peeked very cautiously into the yard. Then his heart gave a great jump, for there under a tall apple-tree stood Rex! The big black horse was tied fast to a limb of the tree by a thick rope, and he looked very sad. Towser was so delighted to see him that he forgot all about the danger, and gave a tremendous bark. Rex turned his head as quick as a flash, and there was Towser's face looking at him over the top of the wall. Rex gave a great jump of joy, and lashed his tail and whinnied loudly. Just then the tall robber hurried out of the house. He had a red shirt on, and a broad leather belt with a big knife stuck in it. He looked very ugly, for he was scowling horribly. "What's all this noise?” he snarled as he went up to Rex. "Stop it, I say!” And he struck Rex with his hand slap! right across the nose. "I heard a dog, too," said the tall robber, and he began to look all around the yard. Towser crouched flat on the ground behind the wall, and kept as still as a mouse. "Huh!" said the tall robber. "I’m sure I heard a dog." But after looking all about, he could not see Towser, so at last he went back into the house and shut the door with a bang. Towser had been frightened half to death, so he still lay very quiet behind the wall. By this time it was evening, and it was growing darker and darker all the while, but Towser made up his mind not to do anything more till the robbers had gone to bed. He was so tired that he wanted to take a nap in the grass, but he felt that it would not be safe. So he just lay there and listened and waited. About nine o'clock, the short robber came out and walked around the yard. He was not so bad as the tall robber and, before he went in, Towser heard him giving Rex a pail of water to drink. The robbers locked up their house soon after, but there was a light in the upper windows, and Towser could see them inside walking back and forth. About midnight, however, the light went out, and then he knew that they had gone to bed. He sat up on his hind-legs. "Now is the time," said he, and with one big bound he jumped right over the wall into the robbers' back-yard. The moon began to come out from behind a cloud, and he saw Rex and Rex saw him. Neither made a sound, however, for fear the robbers should hear them, but they rubbed their noses together for a moment, and laughed softly to themselves. Towser put up his mouth and began to feel of the rope by which Rex was tied to the tree. It was a very thick strong rope, and it did not seem as though it could ever be broken in any way, but Towser put his fore-paws up against the slanting trunk of the tree to brace himself, and took the rope in his teeth and began to gnaw it as hard as he could. He bit and twisted and chewed and gnashed and pulled and snapped. His long sharp teeth sank down into the rope, and began at last to cut it a little bit. Finally one of the small strands of the rope gave way. Towser almost barked with joy, but he checked himself just in time, and went on biting and gnawing harder than ever. Little by little the rope began to part. First one strand and then another was bitten through, until only about a quarter of the thickness was left. Then, all of a sudden, Rex, who had kept very still, gave a great pull with all his might, and the rope snapped like a paper string. Rex was free! He shook his mane and pawed the ground. He was free! Towser, too, jumped about him, while his heart beat fast with joy. He had done something for Mabel at last. A moment later, after he had picked the bits of rope out of his teeth with his claws, he beckoned to Rex to follow, and they both went very softly out of the robbers' yard, walking on the grass so as not to make a noise. But the moment they were out in the road, Towser waved his tail and gave a terrific bark, and plunged away toward home as fast as he could go, with Rex galloping after him like mad. It was nearly morning, and the sky was beginning to grow pink all around the edges. On went Rex and Towser, on, on, on, over hill and dale, through valley and on the level road, till they passed the Little Pig's red house, and went through the woods where the Good Wolf hunted, by the Mooly Cow's house, and the Kitty-Cat's house, over the bridge where the Frogs sat on the stones in their brook, past the house where the Cross Dog lived, until at last, just as the sun was rising, they came thundering into Mabel's yard, all safely home again! Mabel was lying awake in her crib. She had slept very little all night, and was so sorrowful that she thought she could never be happy any more. All of a sudden she heard a tremendous clattering of hoofs in the yard right under her window. "Why, what's that?” she said. She got up slowly and went to the window and looked out. Rex! She gave a scream so loud that every one in the house heard it. Then she made one big rush for the stairs, slid down the banisters like a flash of lightning, and flew out into the yard in her bare feet and with nothing on but her nightie. "Oh, Rex! Rex! Rex!” she cried, and threw her little arms around his neck. He whinnied as loud as he could, and put his nose against her cheek, and she petted him and cooed over him as though she would never stop. By this time Grandma and Walter and Jane, the cook, had all come down, and were looking on in astonishment. They could not understand how Rex had come back from the robbers. Poor Towser lay on the grass with his tongue out of his mouth, and his coat covered with dust, but no one noticed him at all or cared anything about him. He was tired and hungry and lame, and he was the one who had found Rex and brought him back from the robbers, so he hoped that Mabel would speak at least one word to him. But he saw that she wasn't thinking of him at all, and as he looked up wistfully at her, two big tears came into his eyes. Just then the Farmer came by on his way to milk the cows. When he saw Rex standing in the yard he walked in. "Well, well, well!" he said. "If there ain't your horse back again! How did you get him?” "He came back himself," said Mabel. "I don't know how he did it." The Farmer saw the rope hanging to Rex's neck. "Must have broke his rope," said he. “Here, let's look. Why, this rope ain't broken, it's bit. Looks as though a dog had gnawed it. Mighty curious thing." At that moment he noticed Towser, lying beside the driveway and all covered with dust. "Hullo! There's that dog of yours! Looks as though he'd been on a journey. Suppose he could have done it?” Everybody turned and looked at Towser. "Why, he was away all yesterday afternoon," said Walter, "and didn't come back all night" Mabel ran up to Towser. "Tell me, Towser," she said, "did you go and get Rex back?” Towser stood up and wagged his tail, and gave a great bark. "Did he, Rex?” said Mabel. Rex nodded his head yes, and gave a loud whinny. "Oh, you dear dog!” cried Mabel, as she ran and threw her arms around his neck with a big hug that nearly choked him. "You good, good dog! And I never noticed you!” Towser was so glad that he didn't know what to say. He just rolled on the grass, and then jumped up and down and put his paws on Mabel's shoulders and licked her face. Pretty soon Jane brought out a big platter of meat and a bowl of milk for him, and he ate and ate as though he had never eaten anything before. "Eat away," said Mabel. "After this I am going to love you as much as I do Rex, and you shall always have everything you want." That same day Grandma sent for a man who came and put a great iron padlock on the barn-door, and every evening after that Mabel and Walter locked it up tight so that no robbers could get in again to steal. Five. Rex plays Policeman. About a week after Towser had brought Rex home, Mabel rode out one morning into the town, instead of going along the country roads where she nearly always went. Grandma wanted to send a message by her to the ice-man. When she reached the main street she found great crowds of people there, because a regiment of soldiers was going to march through that morning, and everybody wanted to see them. There were flags in the windows, and the sidewalks were packed with men and women and children, all facing the street. As Mabel rode slowly along, suddenly Rex gave a snort. "What's the matter, Rex?" asked Mabel, patting him on the neck. But before she knew what he was doing, he had left the middle of the street and was trotting right up to the sidewalk, still snorting. "Whoa, Rex!” said Mabel, but he would not whoa. Mabel was rather frightened, and

Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html Source of Rahan Comics: Philippe Ropers. https://vk.com/topic-203785966_47424128 Rahan. Episode One Hundred and Five. By Roger Lecureux, drawn by Andre Cheret. The Haunted Cave. The son of Crao amused himself by observing the child who was playing with a hedgehog. He suddenly screamed when he saw the large boa gliding through the tall grass. Look out for the “Boak”, little man! The child, disturbed, saw the snake and ran away at full speed. Leaving the reptile facing the hedgehog. Ha-ha-ha! The “Stinging Beast” has nothing to fear from you, “Boak”! The boa attacked, retreated, attacked, and retreated again. Rahan knew he would tire quickly. Page Two. Indeed, it moved away and quickly disappeared under the thickets. You are very lucky to have your body covered in spears, "Stinging Beast"! The hedgehog remained in a ball. Rahan was approaching this beast which had always intrigued him, when a cry of fear resounded. He rushed into the thickets, and. You did not run away fast enough, little man! The ivory knife flew away. But the fear of hitting the child made Rahan miss his target. His weapon was lost in the bushes. You will not kill the little man, "Boak"! Page Three. The coils released from the inanimate child immediately formed around the legs and torso of the son of Crao. Argh! Rahan knew that the "Boak" never bit. He killed by suffocation. For the pleasure of killing! Rahan's knife. Look little one. Quickly! Quickly! The child had regained consciousness and was stepping back in terror. In the bushes. Look for the knife. Ah! Rahan did not see the little man run away screaming. His vision was blurring. The grip of the terrible rings tightened still further. The sky and the trees turned red. Everything swirled around him and he sank into nothingness. Page Four. The son of Crao was not dead. But this adversary who no longer offered resistance, no longer interested the reptile. Rahan had not recovered his senses when hunters, guided by the child, appeared in the clearing. We never sacrificed one of our own to the “Genie of the Cave”! We will offer him this stranger with fiery hair! When Rahan came to, he was tied to a frame. Rahan saved one of your children! Why did you tie him up like an enemy? The clan blesses the spirits who led him to its territory! Because the “Genie of the cave” is tired of the game we offer him. Hear him roar! From a cave rose strange roars interspersed with wailing. Page Five. This night, for the first time, we will offer human flesh to the genie. Yours! However. I found the fire-haired hunter's knife, father! He saved Hakki! Why does the clan want to sacrifice him? The clan hopes that this offering will please the "Genie." Arka would like to help Fire hair, but can he? When night came, hunters carried the captive towards the cave. Looking at one of them, Rahan regained his confidence. Does Rahan have an ally? This man suddenly exclaimed. Hair of Fire should not escape the “Genie”. Arka will check his vines. Page Six. The son of Crao almost betrayed himself when he caught a glimpse of his knife. Surreptitiously, unbeknownst to his family, Arka was cutting into the bonds! A moment later, the hunters abandoned Rahan and fled towards the village. The long moans still rose from the mysterious cavern, punctuated by muffled rumbles like those of thunder. By what horrible monster was this cave haunted? The vines had finally given way. Without Arka, Rahan would never have been able to break these ties. Oh! Very familiar roars rang out. Three great lions emerged from the darkness. Without a knife, Rahan cannot face the "Long Manes"! Page Seven. With a jump, the son of Crao dodged the attack of the first beast. Ra-ha-ha! And the dismayed clan saw him jump on a rock, and disappear into the night. How was “Fire hair” able to free himself? How? The clan will have to find him! Listen! The Genie commands us! The lions were peacefully stretched out in front of the cave in the depths of which the "Genie" bellowed. If Rahan wants his knife back, he must find Arka! From daybreak, in small groups, the hunters set out in search of the fugitive. The son of Crao had avoided several, when. Arka! Rahan recognizes him! Page Eight. The three men believed that a large "Four-Hands" had let himself fall on them. The two who brandished their spears did not have time to throw them. Argh! Fear not, Arka! Rahan only wants his knife. And to know why you helped him to save himself! You saved my son's life. It is only natural that I help you! Even by preventing the sacrifice which was supposed to calm the “Genie of the cave”! What is this “Genie” that is terrorizing the clan? Is it a man? A beast? Nobody knows! Even the bravest hunters have never dared to enter its lair! Page Nine. These hunters could have killed the “Long-manes”! The “Long-manes” belong to the “Genie”! If we strike them, the curse will fall on the clan! Every night, we leave part of our hunt at the entrance to the cave. This offering must satisfy the "Genie" since it has never been released! It is the “Long-manes” who carry the meat. And no one has ever seen the “Genie”! A strange creature who spends his life in darkness growling and moaning! But since the clan lives in fear, why does it not leave this territory? Abandon the “Genie”? He would find us very quickly and his revenge would be terrible! But do not ask any more questions, "Fire hair." Since we are even, take back your weapon! Page Ten. The son of Crao did not have time to grab the ivory knife. Hunters suddenly appeared. We have heard it all, Arka! So it was you who helped “Fire hair” to run away! And you were preparing to renew this betrayal! You deserve to die, Arka! A little later. Tahoan has just consulted the elders. They believe that Rahan, as a captive, was right to want to escape. It was his duty as a hunter! But the ancients' judgment, is that Arka's betrayal is unforgivable! Rahan will therefore be released and Arka will be delivered as an offering to the genie! A moment later, Rahan was free. His knife was returned to him. You have a choice. Either you leave immediately or you attend the sacrifice! Rahan stays! Page Eleven. Rahan will not abandon you! Before nightfall, he will have changed the minds of the elders! What is the point? Every hunter must reach the "Territory of Shadows" one day or another. Arka will be the first man to see the "Genie," if the "Long Manes" do not cut his throat first! No! No! I love you, father! Stay with Hakki! The child's pain upset Rahan. Do not cry anymore, Hakki! If the elders respect bravery, they will pardon your father. Rahan will propose an exchange to them. Tahoan the chief and the elders listened to him willingly. None of yours has ever dared to confront the "Genie." Pardon Arka and it will be Rahan who goes into the cave. If Rahan survives, you will know what flesh the "Genie" who frightens you is made of! An admiring murmur arose, but. "Fire-Hair" is crazy! The long-manes will not let him enter the cave! Rahan will kill them! Page Twelve. No! His "Long-Manes" are sacred! If you strike them, it would be the end of the clan! So you refuse Rahan's bargain? We accept it! But on one condition. No Long-Mane must be killed! The elder pointed to the three lions dozing at the entrance to the cave. How to enter it without confronting these wild beasts? If Rahan is not allowed to fight them, he will not make it to the cave! He will be slaughtered, torn to pieces. Unless, Unless. An idea suddenly took hold of the son of Crao. He saw again the hedgehog, which, without a fight, pushed back the boa. Rahan knows how to carry himself, like the "Beast-that-stings"! Attentive and intrigued, the hunters saw him cutting long bamboos and sharpening them. Page thirteen. Soon after, he had them assembled and was strengthening the strange cage. Rahan finds the will of the elders stupid, but he will respect it. He will not fight the "Long-Manes"! A murmur arose as he slipped into the "bamboo hedgehog" Rahan hopes to see the monster that haunts the cave! For the son of Crao, these growls that sometimes ceased, could only come from the chest of a giant animal. The lions charged. The attack was neatly broken by the sharp bamboos! Go ahead, "Long-Manes"! Rahan fears neither your claws nor your teeth! The sight of this prey which they could not approach made the lions furious. Page Fourteen. But their furious paws were in vain. They could only circle around the "Hedgehog" without reaching Rahan! "Fire-Hair" kept his word! He did not fight the "Long-Manes"! Tired of attacking an inaccessible prey, the lions left the cage. And the clan, torn between admiration and anxiety, saw him disappear into the cave! The "Genie" has fallen silent! The silence was brief. A long moan rose, followed by a strange purring. The monster is lurking somewhere. He is probably watching Rahan. The cavern was immense. The carcasses of animals given as an offering to the "Genie" littered the ground. Page Fifteen. As the walls closed in to form a tunnel, the son of Crao had to abandon his cage. The rumbling, that had grown louder. Soon became terrifying. Knife in hand, and heart pounding, Rahan crawled toward a glimpse of light. He had barely entered a second cavern when a blast of unheard-of violence pinned him to the wall. Was it the monster's breath? Argh! Deafening roars and rumblings rose up from all sides. Oh! Rahan has discovered the secret of the haunted cave! Page Sixteen. There is no "Genie"! No monster! It is the wind that moans! The wind that roars! The wind that howls! Returning to the first cavern, the son of Crao blocked the passage with rocks. And silence returned. Look, brothers, look! "Fire-Hair" has challenged the "Genie"! He is back! Remembering their failure, the lions did not even flinch! But the "Bamboo Hedgehog" was soon assailed by the enthusiastic hunters. Did you see the "Genie"? Is he a man a beast? What shape is it? The "Genie" has no form! If the clan had been bolder, it would have known long ago that its fears were stupid! What it feared so much is only the song of the wind in the bowels of the mountain! Page Seventeen. Rahan shared his discovery. And in the second cavern a gap opens on the other side. The noises of the wind rushing through it arrive muffled in the first cavern. If you do not hear them anymore it's because Rahan blocked the passage! Ha-ha-ha! You were afraid of the wind! You carried your offerings to the wind! But. But the long manes? These wild beasts feed on the meat that you intended for the "Genie" fed every night without even having to hunt! These "Long-Manes" are not sacred, Tahoan! But they never attacked ours! They always stayed near the cave! Ha-ha-ha! Why would these wild beasts abandon such a wonderful den? One in front of which they found such copious food!? Page Eighteen. And tonight, you would have committed the crime of delivering one of your own to these beasts! No one murmured when Rahan went to free Arka. Thank you, fire-hair! Thanks to you, we will no longer live in terror! Who knows? Has Rahan convinced you that you were victims of a foolish belief? Yes! Look at me! Fear has left them! They are going to kill the long-manes! They are going to explore the cave! Armed with spears, Tahoan and his hunters rushed towards this cavern which had always inspired so much fear in them! And the elders surrounded Rahan. We appreciate your bravery, fire-hair! But we do not understand how you came up with a cage like this! Uh. Rahan only imitated the "Beast-that-stings" but not as well! The son of Crao modestly pointed to a hedgehog that was trotting a stone's throw away. The animal suddenly curled up into a ball, unaware that the young Hakki, who was running happily towards him, only wanted to play.

The Song of Roland. An anonymous Old French epic, dating perhaps as early as the middle Eleventh century. Translated by Charles Kenneth Scott-Moncreiff. Reformatted for machine Speech by PukeOnAPlate 2024. One. Charles the King, our Lord and Sovereign, Full seven years hath sojourned in Spain, Conquered the land, and won the western main, Now no fortress against him doth remain, No city walls are left for him to gain, Save Sarraguce, that sits on high mountain. Marsile its King, who feareth not God's name, Mahumet's man, he invokes Apollin's aid, Nor wards off ills that shall to him attain. AOI. Two. King Marsilies he lay at Sarraguce, Went he his way into an orchard cool, There on a throne he sate, of marble blue, Round him his men, full twenty thousand, stood. Called he forth then his counts, also his dukes: "My Lords, give ear to our impending doom: That Emperour, Charles of France the Douce, Into this land is come, us to confuse. I have no host in battle him to prove, Nor have I strength his forces to undo. Counsel me then, ye that are wise and true, Can ye ward off this present death and dule?" What word to say no pagan of them knew, Save Blancandrin, of the Castle of Val Funde. Three. Blancandrins was a pagan very wise, In vassalage he was a gallant knight, First in prowess, he stood his lord beside. And thus he spoke: "Do not yourself affright! Yield to Carlun, that is so big with pride, Faithful service, his friend and his ally, Lions and bears and hounds for him provide, Thousand mewed hawks, seven hundred camelry, Silver and gold, four hundred mules load high, Fifty wagons his wrights will need supply, Till with that wealth he pays his soldiery. War hath he waged in Spain too long a time, To Aix, in France, homeward he will him hie. Follow him there before Saint Michael's tide, You shall receive and hold the Christian rite, Stand honour bound, and do him fealty. Send hostages, should he demand surety, Ten or a score, our loyal oath to bind, Send him our sons, the first-born of our wives, An he be slain, I'll surely furnish mine. Better by far they go, though doomed to die, Than that we lose honour and dignity, And be ourselves brought down to beggary." AOI. Four. Says Blancandrins: "By my right hand, I say, And by this beard, that in the wind doth sway, The Frankish host you'll see them all away, Franks will retire to France their own terrain. When they are gone, to each his fair domain, In his Chapelle at Aix will Charles stay, High festival will hold for Saint Michael. Time will go by, and pass the appointed day, Tidings of us no Frank will hear or say. Proud is that King, and cruel his courage, From the hostage he'll slice their heads away. Better by far their heads be shorn away, Than that ourselves lose this clear land of Spain, Than that ourselves do suffer grief and pain." "That is well said. So be it." the pagans say. Five. The council ends, and that King Marsilie Calleth aside Clarun of Balaguee, Estramarin and Eudropin his peer, And Priamun and Guarlan of the beard, And Machiner and his uncle Mahee, With Jouner, Malbien from over sea, And Blancandrin, good reason to decree: Ten hath he called, were first in felony. "Gentle Barons, to Charlemagne go ye, He is in siege of Cordres the city. In your right hands bear olive-branches green Which signify Peace and Humility. If you by craft contrive to set me free, Silver and gold, you'll have your fill of me, Manors and fiefs, I'll give you all your need." "We have enough," the pagans straight agree. AOI. Six. King Marsilies, his council finishing, Says to his men: "Go now, my lords, to him, Olive-branches in your right hands bearing, Bid ye for me that Charlemagne, the King, In his God's name to shew me his mercy, Ere this new moon wanes, I shall be with him, One thousand men shall be my following, I will receive the rite of christening, Will be his man, my love and faith swearing, Hostages too, he'll have, if so he will." Says Blancandrins: "Much good will come of this." AOI. Seven. Ten snow-white mules then ordered Marsilie, Gifts of a King, the King of Suatilie. Bridled with gold, saddled in silver clear, Mounted them those that should the message speak, In their right hands were olive-branches green. Came they to Charle, that holds all France in fee, Yet cannot guard himself from treachery. AOI. Eight. Merry and bold is now that Emperour, Cordres he holds, the walls are tumbled down, His catapults have battered town and tower. Great good treasure his knights have placed in pound, Silver and gold and many a jewelled gown. In that city there is no pagan now But he been slain, or takes the Christian vow. The Emperour is in a great orchard ground Where Oliver and Rollant stand around, Sansun the Duke and Anseis the proud, Gefreid d'Anjou, that bears his gonfaloun, There too Gerin and Geriers are found. Where they are found, is seen a mighty crowd, Fifteen thousand, come out of France the Douce. On white carpets those knights have sate them down, At the game-boards to pass an idle hour, Chequers the old, for wisdom most renowned, While fence the young and lusty bachelors. Beneath a pine, in eglantine embowered, l Stands a fald-stool, fashioned of gold throughout, There sits the King, that holds Douce France in power, White is his beard, and blossoming-white his crown, Shapely his limbs, his countenance is proud. Should any seek, no need to point him out. The messengers, on foot they get them down, And in salute full courteously they lout. Nine. The foremost word of all Blancandrin spake, And to the King: "May God preserve you safe, The All Glorious, to Whom ye're bound to pray! Proud Marsilies this message bids me say: Much hath he sought to find salvation's way, Out of his wealth meet presents would he make, Lions and bears, and greyhounds leashed on chain, Thousand mewed hawks, seven hundred dromedrays, Four hundred mules his silver shall convey, Fifty wagons you'll need to bear away Golden besants, such store of proved assay, Wherewith full tale your soldiers you can pay. Now in this land you've been too long a day Hie you to France, return again to Aix, Thus saith my Lord, he'll follow too that way." That Emperour t'wards God his arms he raised Lowered his head, began to meditate. AOI. Ten. That Emperour inclined his head full low, Hasty in speech he never was, but slow: His custom was, at his leisure he spoke. When he looks up, his face is very bold, He says to them: "Good tidings have you told. King Marsilies hath ever been my foe. These very words you have before me told, In what measure of faith am I to hold?" That Sarrazin says, "Hostages he'll show, Ten shall you take, or fifteen or a score. Though he be slain, a son of mine shall go, Any there be you'll have more nobly born. To your palace seigneurial when you go, At Michael's Feast, called in periculo, My Lord hath said, thither will he follow Even to your baths, that God for you hath wrought, There is he fain the Christian faith to know." Answers him Charles: "Still may he heal his soul." AOI. Eleven. Clear shone the sun in a fair even-tide, Those ten men's mules in stall he bade them tie. Also a tent in the orchard raise on high, Those messengers had lodging for the night, Dozen serjeants served after them aright. Darkling they lie till comes the clear daylight. That Emperour does with the morning rise, Matins and Mass are said then in his sight. Forth goes that King, and stays beneath a pine, Barons he calls, good counsel to define, For with his Franks he's ever of a mind. AOI. Twelve. That Emperour, beneath a pine he sits, Calls his barons, his council to begin: Oger the Duke, that Archbishop Turpin, Richard the old, and his nephew Henry, From Gascony the proof Count Acolin, Tedbald of Reims and Milun his cousin: With him there were Gerers, also Gerin, And among them the Count Rollant came in, And Oliver, so proof and so gentil. Franks out of France, a thousand chivalry, Guenes came there, that wrought the treachery. The Council then began, which ended ill. AOI. Thirteen. "My Lords Barons," says the Emperour then, Charles, "King Marsilies hath sent me his messages, Out of his wealth he'll give me weighty masses. Greyhounds on leash and bears and lions also, Thousand mewed hawks and seven hundred camels, Four hundred mules with gold Arabian charged, Fifty wagons, yea more than fifty drawing. But into France demands he my departure, He'll follow me to Aix, where is my Castle, There he'll receive the law of our Salvation: Christian he'll be, and hold from me his marches. But I know not what purpose in his heart is." Then say the Franks: "Beseems us act with caution!" AOI. Fourteen. That Emperour hath ended now his speech. The Count Rollanz, he never will agree, Quick to reply, he springs upon his feet, And to the King, "Believe not Marsilie. Seven years since, when into Spain came we, I conquer'd you Noples also Commibles, And took Valterne, and all the land of Pine, And Balaguet, and Tuele, and Sezilie. Traitor in all his ways was Marsilies, Of his pagans he sent you then fifteen, Bearing in hand their olive-branches green: Who, even as now, these very words did speak. You of your Franks a Council did decree, Praised they your words that foolish were in deed. Two of your Counts did to the pagan speed, Basan was one, and the other Basilie: Their heads he took on the hill by Haltilie. War have you waged, so on to war proceed, To Sarraguce lead forth your great army. All your life long, if need be, lie in siege, Vengeance for those the felon slew to wreak." AOI. Fifteen. That Emperour he sits with lowering front, He clasps his chin, his beard his fingers tug, Good word nor bad, his nephew not one. Franks hold their peace, but only Guenelun Springs to his feet, and comes before Carlun, Right haughtily his reason he's begun, And to the King: "Believe not any one, My word nor theirs, save whence your good shall come. Since he sends word, that King Marsiliun, Homage he'll do, by finger and by thumb, Throughout all Spain your writ alone shall run Next he'll receive our rule of Christendom Who shall advise, this bidding be not done, Deserves not death, since all to death must come. Counsel of pride is wrong: we've fought enough. Leave we the fools, and with the wise be one." AOI. Sixteen. And after him came Neimes out, the third, Better vassal there was not in the world, And to the King: "Now rightly have you heard Guenes the Count, what answer he returned. Wisdom was there, but let it well be heard. King Marsilies in war is overturned, His castles all in ruin have you hurled, With catapults his ramparts have you burst, Vanquished his men, and all his cities burned, Him who entreats your pity do not spurn, Sinners were they that would to war return, With hostages his faith he would secure, Let this great war no longer now endure." "Well said the Duke." Franks utter in their turn. AOI. Seventeen. "My lords barons, say whom shall we send up To Sarraguce, to King Marsiliun?" Answers Duke Neimes: "I'll go there for your love, Give me therefore the wand, also the glove." Answers the King: "Old man of wisdom pruff, By this white beard, and as these cheeks are rough, You'll not this year so far from me remove, Go sit you down, for none hath called you up." Eighteen. "My lords barons, say whom now can we send To the Sarrazin that Sarraguce defends?" Answers Rollanz: "I might go very well." "Certes, you'll not," says Oliver his friend, "For your courage is fierce unto the end, I am afraid you would misapprehend. If the King wills it I might go there well." Answers the King: "Be silent both on bench, Your feet nor his, I say, shall that way wend. Nay, by this beard, that you have seen grow blench, The dozen peers by that would stand condemned. Franks hold their peace, you'd seen them all silent. Nineteen. Turpins of Reins is risen from his rank, Says to the King: "In peace now leave your Franks. For seven years you've lingered in this land They have endured much pain and sufferance. Give, Sire, to me the clove, also the wand, I will seek out the Spanish Sarazand, For I believe his thoughts I understand." That Emperour answers intolerant: "Go, sit you down on yonder silken mat, And speak no more, until that I command." AOI. Twenty. "Franks, chevaliers," says the Emperour then, Charles, "Choose ye me out a baron from my marches, To Marsilie shall carry back my answer." Then says Rollanz: "There's Guenes, my goodfather." Answer the Franks: "For he can wisely manage, So let him go, there's none you should send rather." And that count Guenes is very full of anguish, Off from his neck he flings the pelts of marten, And on his feet stands clear in silken garment. Proud face he had, his eyes with colour, sparkled, Fine limbs he had, his ribs were broadly arched So fair he seemed that all the court regarded. Says to Rollant: "Fool, wherefore art so wrathful? All men know well that I am thy goodfather, Thou hast decreed, to Marsiliun I travel. Then if God grant that I return hereafter, I'll follow thee with such a force of passion That will endure so long as life may last thee." Answers Rollanz: "Thou art full of pride and madness. All men know well, I take no thought for slander, But some wise man, surely, should bear the answer, If the King will, I'm ready to go rather." AOI. Twenty-One. Answers him Guene: "Thou shalt not go for me. Thou art not my man, nor am I lord of thee. Charles commnds that I do his decree, To Sarraguce going to Marsilie, There I will work a little trickery, This mighty wrath of mine I'll thus let free." When Rollanz heard, began to laugh for glee. AOI. Twenty-Two. When Guenes sees that Rollant laughs at it, Such grief he has, for rage he's like to split, A little more, and he has lost his wit: Says to that count: "I love you not a bit, A false judgement you bore me when you chid. Right Emperour, you see me where you sit, I will your word accomplish, as you bid. AOI. Twenty-Three. "To Sarraguce I must repair, 'tis plain, Whence who goes there returns no more again. Your sister's hand in marriage have I taken, And I've a son, there is no prettier swain: Baldwin, men say he shews the knightly strain. To him I leave my honours and domain. Care well for him, he'll look for me in vain." Answers him Charles: "Your heart is too humane. When I command, time is to start amain." AOI. Twenty-Four. Then says the King: "Guenes, before me stand, And take from me the glove, also the wand. For you have heard, you're chosen by the Franks," "Sire," answers Guenes, "all this is from Rollanz, I'll not love him, so long as I'm a man, Nor Oliver, who goes at his right hand, The dozen peers, for they are of his band, All I defy, as in your sight I stand." Then says the King: "Over intolerant. Now certainly you go when I command." "And go I can, yet have I no warrant Basile had none nor his brother Basant." Twetny-Five. His right hand glove that Emperour holds out, But the count Guenes elsewhere would fain be found, When he should take, it falls upon the ground. Murmur the Franks: "God! What may that mean now? By this message great loss shall come about." "Lordings," says Guene, "You'll soon have news enow." Twenty-Six. "Now," Guenes said, "give me your orders, Sire, Since I must go, why need I linger, I?" Then said the King "In Jesu's Name and mine!" With his right hand he has absolved and signed, Then to his care the wand and brief confides. Twenty-Seven. Guenes the count goes to his hostelry, Finds for the road his garments and his gear, All of the best he takes that may appear: Spurs of fine gold he fastens on his feet, And to his side Murgles his sword of steel. On Tachebrun, his charger, next he leaps, His uncle holds the stirrup, Guinemere. Then you had seen so many knights to weep, Who all exclaim: "Unlucky lord, indeed! In the King's court these many years you've been, Noble vassal, they say that have you seen. He that for you this journey has decreed King Charlemagne will never hold him dear. The Count Rollant, he should not so have deemed, Knowing you were born of very noble breed." After they say: "Us too, Sire, shall he lead." Then answers Guenes: "Not so, the Lord be pleased! Far better one than many knights should bleed. To France the Douce, my lords, you soon shall speed, On my behalf my gentle wife you'll greet, And Pinabel, who is my friend and peer, And Baldewin, my son, whom you have seen, His rights accord and help him in his need." Rides down the road, and on his way goes he. AOI. Twenty-Eight. Guenes canters on, and halts beneath a tree, Where Sarrazins assembled he may see, With Blancandrins, who abides his company. Cunning and keen they speak then, each to each, Says Blancandrins: "Charles, what a man is he, Who conquered Puille and the whole of Calabrie, Into England he crossed the bitter sea, To the Holy Pope restored again his fee. What seeks he now of us in our country?" Then answers Guene "So great courage hath he, Never was man against him might succeed." AOI. Twenty-Nine. Says Blancandrins "Gentle the Franks are found, Yet a great wrong these dukes do and these counts Unto their lord, being in counsel proud, Him and themselves they harry and confound." Guenes replies: "There is none such, without Only Rollanz, whom shame will yet find out. Once in the shade the King had sate him down, His nephew came, in sark of iron brown, Spoils he had won, beyond by Carcasoune, Held in his hand an apple red and round. "Behold, fair Sire," said Rollanz as he bowed, "Of all earth's kings I bring you here the crowns." His cruel pride must shortly him confound, Each day t'wards death he goes a little down, When he be slain, shall peace once more abound." AOI. Thirty. Says Blancandrins: "A cruel man, Rollant, That would bring down to bondage every man, And challenges the peace of every land. With what people takes he this task in hand?" And answers Guene: "The people of the Franks, They love him so, for men he'll never want. Silver and gold he show'rs upon his band, Chargers and mules, garments and silken mats. The King himself holds all by his command, From hence to the East he'll conquer sea and land." AOI. Thirty-One. Cantered so far then Blancandrins and Guene Till each by each a covenant had made And sought a plan, how Rollant might be slain. Cantered so far by valley and by plain To Sarraguce beneath a cliff they came. There a fald-stool stood in a pine-tree's shade, Enveloped all in Alexandrin veils, There was the King that held the whole of Espain, Twenty thousand of Sarrazins his train, Nor was there one but did his speech contain, Eager for news, till they might hear the tale. Haste into sight then Blancandrins and Guene. Thirty-Two. Blancandrin comes before Marsiliun, Holding the hand of county Guenelun, Says to the King "Lord save you, Sire, Mahum And Apollin, whose holy laws here run! Your message we delivered to Charlun, Both his two hands he raised against the sun, Praising his God, but answer made he none. He sends you here his noblest born barun, Greatest in wealth, that out of France is come, From him you'll hear if peace shall be, or none." "Speak," said Marsile: "We'll hear him, every one." AOI. Thirty-Three. But the count Guenes did deeply meditate, Cunning and keen began at length, and spake Even as one that knoweth well the way, And to the King: "May God preserve you safe, The All Glorious, to whom we're bound to pray Proud Charlemagne this message bids me say: You must receive the holy Christian Faith, And yield in fee one half the lands of Spain. If to accord this tribute you disdain, Taken by force and bound in iron chain You will be brought before his throne at Aix, Judged and condemned you'll be, and shortly slain, Yes, you will die in misery and shame." King Marsilies was very sore afraid, Snatching a dart, with golden feathers gay, He made to strike: they turned aside his aim. AOI. Thirty-Four. King Marsilies is turn'ed white with rage, His feathered dart he brandishes and shakes. Guenes beholds: his sword in hand he takes, Two fingers' width from scabbard bares the blade, And says to it: "O clear and fair and brave, Before this King in court we'll so behave, That the Emperour of France shall never say In a strange land I'd thrown my life away Before these chiefs thy temper had essayed." "Let us prevent this fight:" the pagans say. Thirty-Five. Then Sarrazins implored him so, the chiefs, On the faldstoel Marsillies took his seat. "Greatly you harm our cause," says the alcaliph: "When on this Frank your vengeance you would wreak, Rather you should listen to hear him speak." "Sire," Guenes says, "to suffer I am meek. I will not fail, for all the gold God keeps, Nay, should this land its treasure pile in heaps, But I will tell, so long as I be free, What Charlemagne, that Royal Majesty, Bids me inform his mortal enemy." Guenes had on a cloke of sable skin, And over it a veil Alexandrin, These he throws down, they're held by Blancandrin, But not his sword, he'll not leave hold of it, In his right hand he grasps the golden hilt. The pagans say. "A noble baron, this." AOI. Thrity-Six. Before the King's face Guenes drawing near Says to him "Sire, wherefore this rage and fear? Seeing you are, by Charles, of Franks the chief, Bidden to hold the Christians' right belief. One half of Spain he'll render as your fief The rest Rollanz, his nephew, shall receive, Proud parcener in him you'll have indeed. If you will not to Charles this tribute cede, To you he'll come, and Sarraguce besiege, Take you by force, and bind you hands and feet, Bear you outright even unto Aix his seat. You will not then on palfrey nor on steed, Jennet nor mule, come cantering in your speed, Flung you will be on a vile sumpter-beast, Tried there and judged, your head you will not keep. Our Emperour has sent you here this brief." He's given it into the pagan's nief. Thirty-Seven. Now Marsilies, is turn'ed white with ire, He breaks the seal and casts the wax aside, Looks in the brief, sees what the King did write: "Charles commands, who holds all France by might, I bear in mind his bitter grief and ire, 'Tis of Basan and's brother Basilye, Whose heads I took on the hill by Haltilye. If I would save my body now alive, I must despatch my uncle the alcalyph, Charles will not love me ever otherwise." After, there speaks his son to Marsilye, Says to the King: "In madness spoke this wight. So wrong he was, to spare him were not right, Leave him to me, I will that wrong requite." When Guenes hears, he draws his sword outright, Against the trunk he stands, beneath that pine. Thrity-Eight. The King is gone into that orchard then, With him he takes the best among his men, And Blancandrins there shews his snowy hair, And Jursalet, was the King's son and heir, And the alcaliph, his uncle and his friend. Says Blancandrins: "Summon the Frank again, In our service his faith to me he's pledged." Then says the King: "So let him now be fetched." He's taken Guenes by his right finger-ends, And through the orchard straight to the King they wend. Of treason there make lawless parliament. AOI. Thirty-Nine. "Fair Master Guenes," says then King Marsilie, "I did you now a little trickery, Making to strike, I shewed my great fury. These sable skins take as amends from me, Five hundred pounds would not their worth redeem. To-morrow night the gift shall ready be." Guene answers him: "I'll not refuse it, me. May God be pleased to shew you His mercy." AOI. Forty. Then says Marsile "Guenes, the truth to ken, Minded I am to love you very well. Of Charlemagne I wish to hear you tell, He's very old, his time is nearly spent, Two hundred years he's lived now, as 'tis said. Through many lands his armies he has led, So many blows his buckled shield has shed, And so rich kings he's brought to beg their bread, What time from war will he draw back instead?" And answers Guenes: "Not so was Charles bred. There is no man that sees and knows him well But will proclaim the Emperour's hardihead. Praise him as best I may, when all is said, Remain untold, honour and goodness yet. His great valour how can it be counted? Him with such grace hath God illumined, Better to die than leave his banneret." Forty-One. The pagan says: "You make me marvel sore At Charlemagne, who is so old and hoar, Two hundred years, they say, he's lived and more. So many lands he's led his armies o'er, So many blows from spears and lances borne, And so rich kings brought down to beg and sorn, When will time come that he draws back from war?" "Never," says Guenes, "so long as lives his nephew, No such vassal goes neath the dome of heaven, And proof also is Oliver his henchman, The dozen peers, whom Charl'es holds so precious, These are his guards, with other thousands twenty. Charles is secure, he holds no man in terror." AOI. Forty-Two. Says Sarrazin: "My wonder yet is grand At Charlemagne, who hoary is and blanched. Two hundred years and more, I understand, He has gone forth and conquered many a land, Such blows hath borne from many a trenchant lance, Vanquished and slain of kings so rich a band, When will time come that he from war draws back?" "Never," says Guene, "so long as lives Rollanz, From hence to the East there is no such vassal, And proof also, Oliver his comrade, The dozen peers he cherishes at hand, These are his guard, with twenty thousand Franks. Charles is secure, he fears no living man." AOI. Forty-Three. "Fair Master Guenes," says Marsilies the King, "Such men are mine, fairer than tongue can sing, Of knights I can four hundred thousand bring So I may fight with Franks and with their King." Answers him Guenes: "Not on this journeying Save of pagans a great loss suffering. Leave you the fools, wise counsel following, To the Emperour such wealth of treasure give That every Frank at once is marvelling. For twenty men that you shall now send in To France the Douce he will repair, that King, In the rereward will follow after him Both his nephew, count Rollant, as I think, And Oliver, that courteous paladin, Dead are the counts, believe me if you will. Charles will behold his great pride perishing, For battle then he'll have no more the skill. AOI. Forty-Four. Fair Master Guene," says then King Marsilie, "Shew the device, how Rollant slain may be." Answers him Guenes: "That will I soon make clear The King will cross by the good pass of Size, A guard he'll set behind him, in the rear, His nephew there, count Rollant, that rich peer, And Oliver, in whom he well believes, Twenty thousand Franks in their company Five score thousand pagans upon them lead, Franks unawares in battle you shall meet, Bruised and bled white the race of Franks shall be, I do not say, but yours shall also bleed. Battle again deliver, and with speed. So, first or last, from Rollant you'll be freed. You will have wrought a high chivalrous deed, Nor all your life know war again, but peace. AOI. Forty-Five. "Could one achieve that Rollant's life was lost, Charle's right arm were from his body torn, Though there remained his marvellous great host, He'ld not again assemble in such force, Terra Major would languish in repose." Marsile has heard, he's kissed him on the throat, Next he begins to undo his treasure-store. AOI. Forty-Six. Said Marsilie, but now what more said they? "No faith in words by oath unbound I lay, Swear me the death of Rollant on that day." Then answered Guene: "So be it, as you say." On the relics, are in his sword Murgles, Treason he's sworn, forsworn his faith away. AOI. Forty-Seven. Was a fald-stool there, made of olifant. A book thereon Marsilies bade them plant, In it their laws, Mahum's and Tervagant's. He's sworn thereby, the Spanish Sarazand, In the rereward if he shall find Rollant, Battle to himself and all his band, And verily he'll slay him if he can. And answered Guenes: "So be it, as you command!" AOI. Forty-Eight. In haste there came a pagan Valdabrun, Warden had been to King Marsiliun, Smiling and clear, he's said to Guenelun, "Take now this sword, and better sword has none, Into the hilt a thousand coins are run. To you, fair sir, I offer it in love, Give us your aid from Rollant the barun, That in rereward against him we may come." Guenes the count answers: "It shall-be done." Then, cheek and chin, kissed each the other one. Forty-Nine. After there came a pagan, Climorins, Smiling and clear to Guenelun begins: "Take now my helm, better is none than this, But give us aid, on Rollant the marquis, By what device we may dishonour bring." "It shall be done." Count Guenes answered him, On mouth and cheek then each the other kissed. AOI. Fifty. In haste there came the Queen forth, Bramimound, "I love you well, sir," said she to the count, "For prize you dear my lord and all around, Here for your wife I have two brooches found, Amethysts and jacynths in golden mount, More worth are they than all the wealth of Roum, Your Emperour has none such, I'll be bound." He's taken them, and in his hosen pouched. AOI. Fifty-Onre. The King now calls Malduiz, that guards his treasure. "Tribute for Charles, say, is it now made ready?" He answers him: "Ay, Sire, for here is plenty Silver and gold on hundred camels seven, And twenty men, the gentlest under heaven." AOI. Fifity-Two. Marsilie's arm Guene's shoulder doth enfold, He's said to him: "You are both wise and bold. Now, by the law that you most sacred hold, Let not your heart in our behalf grow cold! Out of my store I'll give you wealth untold, Charging ten mules with fine Arabian gold, I'll do the same for you, new year and old. Take then the keys of this city so large, This great tribute present you first to Charles, Then get me placed Rollanz in the rereward. If him I find in valley or in pass, Battle I'll give him that shall be the last." Answers him Guenes: "My time is nearly past." His charger mounts, and on his journey starts. AOI. Fifity-Three. That Emperour draws near to his domain, He is come down unto the city Gailne. The Count Rollanz had broken it and taken, An hundred years its ruins shall remain. Of Guenelun the King for news is fain, And for tribute from the great land of Spain. At dawn of day, just as the light grows plain, Into their camp is come the county Guene. AOI. Fifity-Four. In morning time is risen the Emperere, Mattins and Mass he's heard, and made his prayer, On the green grass before the tent his chair, Where Rollant stood and that bold Oliver, Neimes the Duke, and many others there. Guenes arrived, the felon perjurer, Begins to speak, with very cunning air, Says to the King: "God keep you, Sire, I swear! Of Sarraguce the keys to you I bear, Tribute I bring you, very great and rare, And twenty men, look after them with care. Proud Marsilies bade me this word declare That alcaliph, his uncle, you must spare. My own eyes saw four hundred thousand there, In hauberks dressed, closed helms that gleamed in the air, And golden hilts upon their swords they bare. They followed him, right to the sea they'll fare, Marsile they left, that would their faith forswear, For Christendom they've neither wish nor care. But the fourth league they had not compassed, ere Brake from the North tempest and storm in the air, Then were they drowned, they will no more appear. Were he alive, I should have brought him here. The pagan king, in truth, Sire, bids you hear, Ere you have seen one month pass of this year He'll follow you to France, to your Empire, He will accept the laws you hold and fear, Joining his hands, will do you homage there, Kingdom of Spain will hold as you declare." Then says the King: "Now God be praised, I swear! Well have you wrought, and rich reward shall wear." Bids through the host a thousand trumpets blare. Franks leave their lines, the sumpter-beasts are yare T'wards France the Douce all on their way repair. AOI. Fifty-Five. Charles the Great that land of Spain had wasted, Her castles taken, her cities violated. Then said the King, his war was now abated. Towards Douce France that Emperour has hasted. Upon a lance Rollant his ensign raised, High on a cliff against the sky 'twas placed, The Franks in camp through all that country baited. Cantered pagans, through those wide valleys raced, Hauberks they wore and sarks with iron plated, Swords to their sides were girt, their helms were laced, Lances made sharp, escutcheons newly painted: There in the mists beyond the peaks remained The day of doom four hundred thousand waited. God! what a grief. Franks know not what is fated. AOI. Fifty-Six. Passes the day, the darkness is grown deep. That Emperour, rich Charles, lies asleep, Dreams that he stands in the great pass of Size, In his two hands his ashen spear he sees, Guenes the count that spear from him doth seize, Brandishes it and twists it with such ease, That flown into the sky the flinders seem. Charles sleeps on nor wakens from his dream. Fifty-Seven. And after this another vision saw, In France, at Aix, in his Chapelle once more, That his right arm an evil bear did gnaw, Out of Ardennes he saw a leopard stalk, His body dear did savagely assault, But then there dashed a harrier from the hall, Leaping in the air he sped to Charles call, First the right ear of that grim bear he caught, And furiously the leopard next he fought. Of battle great the Franks then seemed to talk, Yet which might win they knew not, in his thought. Charles sleeps on, nor wakens he for aught. AOI. Fifty-Eight. Passes the night and opens the clear day, That Emperour canters in brave array, Looks through the host often and everyway, "My lords barons," at length doth Charles say, "Ye see the pass along these valleys strait, Judge for me now, who shall in rereward wait." "There's my good-son, Rollanz," then answers Guenes, "You've no baron whose valour is as great." When the King hears, he looks upon him straight, And says to him: "You devil incarnate, Into your heart is come a mortal hate. And who shall go before me in the gate?" "Oger is here, of Denmark," answers Guenes, "You've no baron were better in that place." AOI. Fifty-Nine. The count Rollanz hath heard himself decreed, Speaks then to Guenes by rule of courtesy: "Good-father, Sir, I ought to hold you dear, Since the rereward you have for me decreed. Charles the King will never lose by me, As I know well, nor charger nor palfrey, Jennet nor mule that canter can with speed, Nor sumpter-horse will lose, nor any steed, But my sword's point shall first exact their meed." Answers him Guenes: "I know, 'tis true in-deed." AOI. Sixty. When Rollant heard that he should be rerewarden Furiously he spoke to his good-father: "Aha! culvert, begotten of a bastard. Thinkest the glove will slip from me hereafter, As then from thee the wand fell before Charles?" AOI. Sixty-One. "Right Emperour," says the baron Rollanz, "Give me the bow you carry in your hand, Neer in reproach, I know, will any man Say that it fell and lay upon the land, As Guenes let fall, when he received the wand." That Emperour with lowered front doth stand, He tugs his beard, his chin is in his hand Tears fill his eyes, he cannot them command. Sixty-Two. And after that is come duke Neimes furth, Better vassal there was not upon earth, Says to the King: "Right well now have you heard, The count Rollanz to bitter wrath is stirred, For that on him the rereward is conferred, No baron else have you, would do that work. Give him the bow your hands have bent, at first. Then find him men, his company are worth." Gives it, the King, and Rollant bears it furth. Sixty-Three. That Emperour, Rollanz then calleth he: "Fair nephew mine, know this in verity, Half of my host I leave you presently, Retain you them, your safeguard this shall be." Then says the count: "I will not have them, me I Confound me God, if I fail in the deed! Good valiant Franks, a thousand score I'll keep. Go through the pass in all security, While I'm alive there's no man you need fear." AOI. Sixty-Four. The count Rollanz has mounted his charger. Beside him came his comrade Oliver, Also Gerins and the proud count Geriers, And Otes came, and also Berengiers, Old Anseis, and Sansun too came there, Gerart also of Rossillon the fierce, And there is come the Gascon Engeliers. "Now by my head I'll go!" the Archbishop swears. "And I'm with you," says then the count Gualtiers, "I'm Rollant's man, I may not leave him there." A thousand score they choose of chevaliers. AOI. Sixty-Five. Gualter del Hum he calls, that Count Rollanz, "A thousand Franks take, out of France our land, Dispose them so, among ravines and crags, That the Emperour lose not a single man." Gualter replies: "I'll do as you command." A thousand Franks, come out of France their land, At Gualter's word they scour ravines and crags, They'll not come down, howe'er the news be bad, Ere from their sheaths swords seven hundred flash. King Almaris, Belserne for kingdom had, On the evil day he met them in combat. AOI. Sixty-Six. High are the peaks, the valleys shadowful, Swarthy the rocks, the narrows wonderful. Franks passed that day all very sorrowful, Fifteen leagues round the rumour of them grew. When they were come, and Terra Major knew, Saw Gascony their land and their seigneur's, Remembering their fiefs and their honours, Their little maids, their gentle wives and true, There was not one that shed not tears for rue. Beyond the rest Charles was of anguish full, In Spanish Pass he'd left his dear nephew, Pity him seized, he could but weep for rue. AOI. Sixty-Seven. The dozen peers are left behind in Spain, Franks in their band a thousand score remain, No fear have these, death hold they in disdain. That Emperour goes into France apace, Under his cloke he fain would hide his face. Up to his side comes cantering Duke Neimes, Says to the King: "What grief upon you weighs?" Charles answers him: "He's wrong that question makes. So great my grief I cannot but complain. France is destroyed, by the device of Guene: This night I saw, by an angel's vision plain, Between my hands he brake my spear in twain, Great fear I have, since Rollant must remain: I've left him there, upon a border strange. God! If he's lost, I'll not outlive that shame." AOI. Sixty-Eight. Charles the great, he cannot but deplore. And with him Franks an hundred thousand mourn, Who for Rollanz have marvellous remorse. The felon Guenes had treacherously wrought, From pagan kin has had his rich reward, Silver and gold, and veils and silken cloths, Camels, lions, with many a mule and horse. Barons from Spain King Marsilies hath called, Counts and viscounts and dukes and almacours, And the admirals, and cadets nobly born, Within three days come hundreds thousands four. In Sarraguce they sound the drums of war, Mahum they raise upon their highest tower, Pagan is none, that does not him adore. They canter then with great contention Through Certeine land, valleys and mountains, on, Till of the Franks they see the gonfalons, Being in rereward those dozen companions, They will not fail battle to do anon. Sixty-Nine. Marsile's nephew is come before the band, Riding a mule, he goads it with a wand, Smiling and clear, his uncle's ear demands: "Fair Lord and King, since, in your service, glad, I have endured sorrow and sufferance, Have fought in field, and victories have had. Give me a fee: the right to smite Rollanz! I'll slay him clean with my good trenchant lance, If Mahumet will be my sure warrant, Spain I'll set free, deliver all her land From Pass of Aspre even unto Durestant. Charles will grow faint, and recreant the Franks, There'll be no war while you're a living man." Marsilie gives the glove into his hand. AOI. Seventy. Marsile's nephew, holding in hand the glove, His uncle calls, with reason proud enough: "Fair Lord and King, great gift from you I've won. Choose now for me eleven more baruns, So I may fight those dozen companions." First before all there answers Falfarun, Brother he was to King Marsiliun. "Fair sir nephew, go you and I at once Then verily this battle shall be done, The rereward of the great host of Carlun, It is decreed we deal them now their doom." AOI. Seventy-One. King Corsablis is come from the other part, Barbarian, and steeped in evil art. He's spoken then as fits a good vassal, For all God's gold he would not seem coward. Hastes into view Malprimis of Brigal, Faster than a horse, upon his feet can dart, Before Marsile he cries with all his heart: "My body I will shew at Rencesvals, Find I Rollanz, I'll slay him without fault." Seventy-Two. An admiral is there of Balaguet, Clear face and proud, and body nobly bred, Since first he was upon his horse mounted, His arms to bear has shewn great lustihead, In vassalage he is well famoused, Christian were he, he'd shewn good baronhead. Before Marsile aloud has he shouted: "To Rencesvals my body shall be led, Find I Rollanz, then is he surely dead, And Oliver, and all the other twelve, Franks shall be slain in grief and wretchedness. Charles the great is old now and doted, Weary will be and make no war again, Spain shall be ours, in peace and quietness." King Marsilies has heard and thanks him well. AOI. Seventy-Three. An almacour is there of Moriane, More felon none in all the land of Spain. Before Marsile his vaunting boast hath made: "To Rencesvals my company I'll take, A thousand score, with shields and lances brave. Find I Rollanz, with death I'll him acquaint, Day shall not dawn but Charles will make his plaint." AOI. Seventy-Four. From the other part, Turgis of Turtelose, He was a count, that city was his own, Christians he would them massacre, every one. Before Marsile among the rest is gone, Says to the King: "Let not dismay be shewn! Mahum's more worth than Saint Peter of Rome, Serve we him well, then fame in field we'll own. To Rencesvals, to meet Rollanz I'll go, From death he'll find his warranty in none. See here my sword, that is both good and long With Durendal I'll lay it well across, Ye'll hear betimes to which the prize is gone. Franks shall be slain, whom we descend upon, Charles the old will suffer grief and wrong, No more on earth his crown will he put on." Seventy-Five. From the other part, Escremiz of Valtrenne, A Sarrazin, that land was his as well. Before Marsile he cries amid the press: "To Rencesvals I go, pride to make less, Find I Rollanz, he'll not bear thence his head, Nor Oliver that hath the others led, The dozen peers condemned are to death, Franks shall be slain, and France lie deserted. Of good vassals will Charles be richly bled." AOI. Seventy-Six. From the other part, a pagan Esturganz, Estramariz also, was his comrade, Felons were these, and traitors miscreant. Then said Marsile: "My Lords, before me stand! Into the pass ye'll go to Rencesvals, Give me your aid, and thither lead my band." They answer him: "Sire, even as you command. We will assault Olivier and Rollant, The dozen peers from death have no warrant, For these our swords are trusty and trenchant, In scalding blood we'll dye their blades scarlat. Franks shall be slain, and Chares be right sad. Terra Major we'll give into your hand, Come there, Sir King, truly you'll see all that Yea, the Emperour we'll give into your hand." Seventy-Seven. Running there came Margariz of Sibile, Who holds the land by Cadiz, to the sea. For his beauty the ladies hold him dear, Who looks on him, with him her heart is pleased, When she beholds, she can but smile for glee. Was no pagan of such high chivalry. Comes through the press, above them all cries he, "Be not at all dismayed, King Marsilie! To Rencesvals I go, and Rollanz, he Nor Oliver may scape alive from me, The dozen peers are doomed to martyry. See here the sword, whose hilt is gold indeed, I got in gift from the admiral of Primes, In scarlat blood I pledge it shall be steeped. Franks shall be slain, and France abased be. To Charles the old, with his great blossoming beard, Day shall not dawn but brings him rage and grief, Ere a year pass, all France we shall have seized, Till we can lie in the burgh of Saint Denise." The pagan king has bowed his head down deep. AOI. Seventy-Eight. From the other part, Chemubles of Muneigre. Right to the ground his hair swept either way, He for a jest would bear a heavier weight Than four yoked mules, beneath their load that strain. That land he had, God's curse on it was plain. No sun shone there, nor grew there any grain, No dew fell there, nor any shower of rain, The very stones were black upon that plain, And many say that devils there remain. Says Chemubles "My sword is in its place, At Rencesvals scarlat I will it stain, Find I Rollanz the proud upon my way, I'll fall on him, or trust me not again, And Durendal I'll conquer with this blade, Franks shall be slain, and France a desert made." The dozen peers are, at this word, away, Five score thousand of Sarrazins they take, Who keenly press, and on to battle haste, In a fir-wood their gear they ready make. Seventy-Nine. Ready they make hauberks Sarrazinese, That folded are, the greater part, in three, And they lace on good helms Sarragucese, Gird on their swords of tried steel Viennese, Fine shields they have, and spears Valentinese, And white, blue, red, their ensigns take the breeze, They've left their mules behind, and their palfreys, Their chargers mount, and canter knee by knee. Fair shines the sun, the day is bright and clear, Light bums again from all their polished gear. A thousand horns they sound, more proud to seem, Great is the noise, the Franks its echo hear. Says Oliver: "Companion, I believe, Sarrazins now in battle must we meet." Answers Rollanz: "God grant us then the fee! For our King's sake well must we quit us here, Man for his lord should suffer great disease, Most bitter cold endure, and burning heat, His hair and skin should offer up at need. Now must we each lay on most hardily, So evil songs neer sung of us shall be. Pagans are wrong: Christians are right indeed. Evil example will never come of me." AOI. Eighty. Oliver mounts upon a lofty peak, Looks to his right along the valley green, The pagan tribes approaching there appear, He calls Rollanz, his companion, to see: "What sound is this, come out of Spain, we hear, What hauberks bright, what helmets these that gleam? They'll smite our Franks with fury past belief, He knew it, Guenes, the traitor and the thief, Who chose us out before the King our chief." Answers the count Rollanz: "Olivier, cease. That man is my good-father, hold thy peace." Eighty-One. Upon a peak is Oliver mounted, Kingdom of Spain he sees before him spread, And Sarrazins, so many gathered. Their helmets gleam, with gold are jewelled, Also their shields, their hauberks orfreyed, Also their swords, ensigns on spears fixed. Rank beyond rank could not be numbered, So many there, no measure could he set. In his own heart he's sore astonished, Fast as he could, down from the peak hath sped Comes to the Franks, to them his tale hath said. Eighty-Two. Says Oliver: "Pagans from there I saw, Never on earth did any man see more. Gainst us their shields an hundred thousand bore, That laced helms and shining hauberks wore, And, bolt upright, their bright brown spearheads shone. Battle we'll have as never was before. Lords of the Franks, God keep you in valour! So hold your ground, we be not overborne!" Then say the Franks "Shame take him that goes off: If we must die, then perish one and all." AOI. Eighty-Three. Says Oliver: "Pagans in force abound, While of us Franks but very few I count, Comrade Rollanz, your horn I pray you sound! If Charles hear, he'll turn his armies round." Answers Rollanz: "A fool I should be found, In France the Douce would perish my renown. With Durendal I'll lay on thick and stout, In blood the blade, to its golden hilt, I'll drown. Felon pagans to the pass shall not come down, I pledge you now, to death they all are bound. AOI. Eighty-Four. "Comrade Rollanz, sound the olifant, I pray, If Charles hear, the host he'll turn again, Will succour us our King and baronage." Answers Rollanz: "Never, by God, I say, For my misdeed shall kinsmen hear the blame, Nor France the Douce fall into evil fame! Rather stout blows with Durendal I'll lay, With my good sword that by my side doth sway, Till bloodied o'er you shall behold the blade. Felon pagans are gathered to their shame, I pledge you now, to death they're doomed to-day." Eighty-Five. "Comrade Rollanz, once sound your olifant! If Charles hear, where in the pass he stands, I pledge you now, they'll turn again, the Franks." "Never, by God," then answers him Rollanz, "Shall it be said by any living man, That for pagans I took my horn in hand! Never by me shall men reproach my clan. When I am come into the battle grand, And blows lay on, by hundred, by thousand, Of Durendal bloodied you'll see the brand. Franks are good men, like vassals brave they'll stand, Nay, Spanish men from death have no warrant." Eighty-Six. Says Oliver: "In this I see no blame, I have beheld the Sarrazins of Spain, Covered with them, the mountains and the vales, The wastes I saw, and all the farthest plains. A muster great they've made, this people strange, We have of men a very little tale." Answers Rollanz: "My anger is inflamed. Never, please God His Angels and His Saints, Never by me shall Frankish valour fail! Rather I'll die than shame shall me attain. Therefore strike on, the Emperour's love to gain." Eighty-Seven. Pride hath Rollanz, wisdom Olivier hath, And both of them shew marvellous courage, Once they are horsed, once they have donned their arms, Rather they'd die than from the battle pass. Good are the counts, and lofty their language. Felon pagans come cantering in their wrath. Says Oliver: "Behold and see, Rollanz, These are right near, but Charles is very far. On the olifant deign now to sound a blast, Were the King here, we should not fear damage. Only look up towards the Pass of Aspre, In sorrow there you'll see the whole rereward. Who does this deed, does no more afterward." Answers Rollanz: "Utter not such outrage! Evil his heart that is in thought coward! We shall remain firm in our place installed, From us the blows shall come, from us the assault." AOI. Eighty-Eight. When Rollant sees that now must be combat, More fierce he's found than lion or leopard, The Franks he calls, and Oliver commands: "Now say no more, my friends, nor thou, comrade. That Emperour, who left us Franks on guard, A thousand score stout men he set apart, And well he knows, not one will prove coward. Man for his lord should suffer with good heart, Of bitter cold and great heat bear the smart, His blood let drain, and all his flesh be scarred. Strike with thy lance, and I with Durendal, With my good sword that was the King's reward. So, if I die, who has it afterward Noble vassal's he well may say it was." Eighty-Nine. From the other part is the Archbishop Turpin, He pricks his horse and mounts upon a hill, Calling the Franks, sermon to them begins: "My lords barons, Charles left us here for this, He is our King, well may we die for him: To Christendom good service offering. Battle you'll have, you all are bound to it, For with your eyes you see the Sarrazins. Pray for God's grace, confessing Him your sins! For your souls' health, I'll absolution give So, though you die, blest martyrs shall you live, Thrones you shall win in the great Paradis." The Franks dismount, upon the ground are lit. That Archbishop God's Benediction gives, For their penance, good blows to strike he bids. Ninety. The Franks arise, and stand upon their feet, They're well absolved, and from their sins made clean, And the Archbishop has signed them with God's seal, And next they mount upon their chargers keen, By rule of knights they have put on their gear, For battle all apparelled as is meet. The count Rollant calls Oliver, and speaks "Comrade and friend, now clearly have you seen That Guenelun hath got us by deceit, Gold hath he taken, much wealth is his to keep, That Emperour vengeance for us must wreak. King Marsilies hath bargained for us cheap, At the sword's point he yet shall pay our meed." AOI. Ninety-One. To Spanish pass is Rollanz now going On Veillantif, his good steed, galloping, He is well armed, pride is in his bearing, He goes, so brave, his spear in hand holding, He goes, its point against the sky turning, A gonfalon all white thereon he's pinned, Down to his hand flutters the golden fringe: Noble his limbs, his face clear and smiling. His companion goes after, following, The men of France their warrant find in him. Proudly he looks towards the Sarrazins, And to the Franks sweetly, himself humbling, And courteously has said to them this thing: "My lords barons, go now your pace holding! Pagans are come great martyrdom seeking, Noble and fair reward this day shall bring, Was never won by any Frankish King." Upon these words the hosts are come touching. AOI. Ninety-Two. Speaks Oliver: "No more now will I say. Your olifant, to sound it do not deign, Since from Carlun you'll never more have aid. He has not heard, no fault of his, so brave. Those with him there are never to be blamed. So canter on, with what prowess you may! Lords and barons, firmly your ground maintain! Be minded well, I pray you in God's Name, Stout blows to strike, to give as you shall take. Forget the cry of Charles we never may." Upon this word the Franks cry out amain. Who then had heard them all "Monjoie!" acclaim Of vassalage might well recall the tale. They canter forth, God! with what proud parade, Pricking their spurs, the better speed to gain, They go to strike, what other thing could they? But Sarrazins are not at all afraid. Pagans and Franks, you would see them now engaged. Ninety-Three. Marsile's nephew, his name is Aelroth, First of them all canters before the host, Says of our Franks these ill words as he goes: "Felons of France, so here on us you close! Betrayed you has he that to guard you ought, Mad is the King who left you in this post. So shall the fame of France the Douce be lost, And the right arm from Charles body torn." When Rollant hears, what rage he has, by God! His steed he spurs, gallops with great effort, He goes, that count, to strike with all his force, The shield he breaks, the hauberk's seam unsews, Slices the heart, and shatters up the bones, All of the spine he severs with that blow, And with his spear the soul from body throws So well he's pinned, he shakes in the air that corse, On his spear's hilt he's flung it from the horse: So in two halves Aeroth's neck he broke, Nor left him yet, they say, but rather spoke: "Avaunt, culvert! A madman Charles is not, No treachery was ever in his thought. Proudly he did, who left us in this post, The fame of France the Douce shall not be lost. Strike on, the Franks! Ours are the foremost blows. For we are right, but these gluttons are wrong." AOI. Ninety-Four. A duke there was, his name was Falfarun, Brother was he to King Marsiliun, He held their land, Dathan's and Abirun's, Beneath the sky no more encrimed felun, Between his eyes so broad was he in front A great half-foot you would measure there in full. His nephew dead he's seen with grief enough, Comes through the press and wildly forth he runs, Aloud he shouts their cry the pagans use, And to the Franks is right contrarious: "Honour of France the Douce shall fall to us!" Hears Oliver, he's very furious, His horse he pricks with both his golden spurs, And goes to strike, even as a baron doth, The shield he breaks and through the hauberk cuts, His ensign's fringe into the carcass thrusts, On his spear's hilt he's flung it dead in dust. Looks on the ground, sees glutton lying thus, And says to him, with reason proud enough: "From threatening, culvert, your mouth I've shut. Strike on, the Franks! Right well we'll overcome." "Monjoie," he shouts, 'twas the ensign of Carlun. AOI. Ninety-Five. A king there was, his name was Corsablix, Barbarian, and of a strange country, He's called aloud to the other Sarrazins: "Well may we join battle upon this field, For of the Franks but very few are here, And those are here, we should account them cheap, From Charles not one has any warranty. This is the day when they their death shall meet." Has heard him well that Archbishop Turpin, No man he'ld hate so much the sky beneath, Spurs of fine gold he pricks into his steed, To strike that king by virtue great goes he, The hauberk all unfastens, breaks the shield, Thrusts his great spear in through the carcass clean, Pins it so well he shakes it in its seat, Dead in the road he's flung it from his spear. Looks on the ground, that glutton lying sees, Nor leaves him yet, they say, but rather speaks: "Culvert pagan, you lied now in your teeth, Charles my lord our warrant is indeed, None of our Franks hath any mind to flee. Your companions all on this spot we'll keep, I tell you news, death shall ye suffer here. Strike on, the Franks! Fail none of you at need! Ours the first blow, to God the glory be!" "Monjoie!" he cries, for all the camp to hear. Ninety-Six. And Gerins strikes Malprimis of Brigal So his good shield is nothing worth at all, Shatters the boss, was fashioned of crystal, One half of it downward to earth flies off, Right to the flesh has through his hauberk torn, On his good spear he has the carcass caught. And with one blow that pagan downward falls, The soul of him Satan away hath borne. AOI. Ninety-Seven. And his comrade Gerers strikes the admiral, The shield he breaks, the hauberk unmetals, And his good spear drives into his vitals, So well he's pinned him, clean through the carcass, Dead on the field he's flung him from his hand. Says Oliver: "Now is our battle grand." Ninety-Eight. Sansun the Duke goes strike that almacour, The shield he breaks, with golden flowers tooled, That good hauberk for him is nothing proof, He's sliced the heart, the lungs and liver through, And flung him dead, as well or ill may prove. Says the Archbishop: "A baron's stroke, in truth." Ninety-Nine. And Anseis has let his charger run, He goes to st

Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html Source of Rahan Comics: Philippe Ropers. https://vk.com/topic-203785966_47424128 Rahan. The son of the fierce ages! Episode One Hundred and Four. By Roger Lecureux, drawn by Andre Cheret. The Sun God. Rahan should have released his arrow sooner. The son of Crao regretted having aimed for too long, because the vulture whose flight he was following. Now passed in front of the sun! He shot his arrow anyway, but, dazzled by the flaming disc. He missed the bird! Cursed be he who dares to desecrate the sun god! Page Two. Argh! Rahan did not have time to seize a second arrow! The blow was terrible! When he came to, he was crucified strangely. Hunters, near the nearby river, were calling out to the sun. They left Rahan his knife. But why did they tie his hair in a knot!? A man, undoubtedly the leader of the clan, was approaching. You tried to kill the sun god, “Fire hair!” My people saw you shoot your arrow! Eh? Rahan is not stupid enough to shoot at the sun! It was a bird he was aiming for! He lies! It was the sun god he wanted to kill! The hunter who aims his arrows at the benevolent sun god only deserves the “territory of shadows”! Death! Death! Page Three. No! The tips of our spears would be too gentle for this desecrator! We will let the Sun God take revenge himself! Do you hear, “Fire hair”? We will abandon you to the sun-god until his fires have eaten away your skin and devoured your eyes! Men moved the frame of branches and Rahan understood. They could thus, at any moment, and depending on the position of the sun. Expose their captive to its unbearable blaze! And Rahan will not even be able to protect his eyes with his hair! The long torture began. The sun continued its slow rise, setting the sky ablaze. To protect his pupils Rahan had only the resource of closing his eyelids. But the chief, goading him with his spear, forced him to reopen them! Ha-ha-ha! When your eyes are dead, we will release you! Page Four. Never again will you see the green valleys! You will live in eternal night! This is what it costs to defy our god! No! Rahan prefers to join the Kingdom of Shadows! The thought of losing his sight increased Rahan's energy tenfold. But it was impossible for him to free himself from the shackles. The chief must have guessed the thoughts of the tortured person. It may be that your eyes resist this first test “Hair of fire!” But you should know that we will continue tomorrow and the following days if necessary! Sometimes the leader would move away and Rahan could close his eyes. But even through his eyelids the flaming persisted! Rahan's suffering will only end with night! Page Five. Whichever way he turned his head there was, again and again, the unbearable vision of fire. Rahan can hardly see anymore! Everything he still perceived became imprecise. The Leader. The hunters. The river. Everything was bathed, behind the veil of his tears, in an unreal sparkle of light. The sun slowly, very slowly began its descent. The yoke was moved once again. Let us go! Open your eyes! The son of Crao felt as if arrows of fire were gouging out his eyes. The pain was unbearable. Rahan will not open his eyes again! Despite the stabs of the spear he kept his eyelids closed. Kill Rahan right away! This death would be too sweet, “Fire-Hair”! Page Six. But we grant you a respite, time to go and find our women to greet the setting of the sun! The hunters disappeared, abandoning the captive. They will come back! They will torture Rahan until his eyes die! The sun was setting, but Rahan saw it only as a fantastic incandescence. Which brought forth from his memory the distant memory of the tragic night, the one where the blue mountain had vomited its fiery entrails! If Rahan could drag himself to the river, he would escape these monsters! He could not free himself from the shackles, but an idea came to him. Fall out of this rack, crawl towards the river, let yourself be carried away by the current! But if Rahan falls on his back he will not be able to turn around! Page Seven. Energetic shaking soon freed the frame of branches from its support and. He. He was about to fall. Ra-ha-ha! With a final thrust, he had steered the fall, falling forward as he wished! Then began the slow and painful crawl. The heavy yoke hindered his difficult contortions. Oh! Rahan's eyes have come back to life! In the reddish fog the landscape gradually regained its contours. One more effort, Rahan! Another effort! The “Water Path” will carry Rahan away from cruel hunters! He will lead him towards a strike. And Rahan will eventually find a way to free himself from these cursed branches! Exhausted, he finally reached the river. He let himself slide there with the yoke. When suddenly. Page Eight. The worshipers of the sun god reappeared! The desecrator escapes us! Kill him! Kill him! Dragged by the rapid flow, the son of Crao was a difficult target! Do not sacrifice your spears unnecessarily! We will catch him at the black teeth! While the hunters left their companions and laughed along the river another danger threatened Rahan! Carried away at crazy speed, helpless, he saw the obstacle approaching! Rahan is going to break his bones on this rock! No! No! Crack! Ra-ha-ha! Rahan is saved! Not only had the yoke cushioned the shock, but it had broken! Page Nine. And Rahan, although still entangled in the dislocated frame, could now seize his knife, and cut his bonds! Arriving at the Black Teeth dam where they thought they would intercept him, the hunters shouted. The desecrator has freed himself! The sun god will never forgive us if we let him escape from our territory! The sun was still blazing, unbearable to his still painful eyes. Rahan will not have time to take refuge in the forest! On this open hill he would quickly fall under the lances, which were already whistling past. Death! Death! They are getting closer. Rahan is lost! No! Not yet! He remembered suddenly how. Dazzled by the sun, he had missed the bearded vulture! You made Rahan suffer, sun! Now you will help him! Page Ten. He rushed towards the ridge, straight onto the disk of fire. Some spears did not care for him because. His pursuers could barely distinguish him in the unbearable dazzle of gold and fire! The sun god is with him! The forest was close. Rahan will soon be safe there! Then, on the hill broke out its cry of victory! Ra-ha-ha! After the horrible torture, the darkness of the ferns seemed sweet and beneficent to him. Maybe they will chase Rahan. But Rahan will escape them! They will not be able to do anything against him in the territory of the four hands! Ra-ha-ha! Yes, the son of Crao was out of danger. And yet his clamor resounded, it was quite simply because his sight had again become as clear, as piercing as on the morning of that terrible day.

Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html Source of Rahan Comics: Philippe Ropers. https://vk.com/topic-203785966_47424128 Rahan. Episode One Hundred and Three. By Roger Lecureux, drawn by Andre Cheret. For a quarter of meat. The sound of the nearby waterfall had covered the approach of the beast. The son of Crao only had time to draw his knife. You should have chosen another prey, "Baghae"! Rahan will not let his throat be slit! But the first blow of his claws tore the ivory knife from him. Ra-ha-ha! You will be less lively in the water, “Baghae”! Crack! Page Two. Fiercely hugging the panther, he dragged it into the torrent. The beast's movements became disorderly. Drink “baghae”, drink! In those savage times, you had to kill or be killed. The son of Crao held the feline's head underwater until the life had left his body. The stream was shallow and he quickly found his knife. It was then that a curious noise alerted him. Oh! Rahan was afraid of a tree! The splash was produced by a shrub, broken during the fight, and which the current was turning on itself. Page Three. Curious about everything, the son of Crao observed for a moment the effects of the running water on this shrub. Then he continued on his way. He had not gone a hundred steps when cries of fear resounded. Hum! This is “Baghae” territory! There, some women were grappling with another panther. Some were paralyzed by fear, but others faced the beast awkwardly. Courage sister! Rahan is used to the “Baghae”! Ra-ha-ha! It felt like a tornado was passing. The beast was snatched from its prey, and thrown ten steps away! Page Four. It did not even have time to get back on its feet, as the ivory blade had done its work. Two "Baghaes" in the morning, Rahan hopes that it is over for today! The women watched Rahan with gratitude, but remained concerned. You saved us from "Baghae", Rahan! But you will not protect us from the wrath of men! When the “Baghae” came along, we abandoned the meat. The men will not forgive us for letting it burn! The hunt must have been bad, for the men who returned were dark and sullen. Page Five. What is going on here, women? Who killed this "Baghae"? Ah! The meat! You will be punished for this mistake! You will be deprived of meat until the full moon! Your companions had to face the “Baghae”! They could not worry about the meat! Who are you to speak to me like that? I am Rahan, the son of Crao. And Rahan does not like treating “Women-who-walk-upright” as you do! Ah-ha-ha! Since you take the side of women, you will be the one to replace them! It is you who will be responsible, from now on, for cooking the meat! And you should know that we like the meat well cooked and just grilled! For each wasted piece, you will be punished ten times with lashes! Page Six. For the son of Crao, a curious ordeal began. Closely watched by the hunters, he had to take care of cooking the "Baghae." It was not a strenuous job, but tedious. The jeers from the men made it irritating. Turn Rahan! Turn! Would you have less patience than our women!? Only the women did not make fun of it. Rahan saved us. Our people are unfair to humiliate him like this! Very good, Rahan! Very good! You are such a good roaster that I believe the clan will no longer be able to do without you! Ah! Ha-ha! As for you, women, since we have found a replacement for you, I am lifting the punishment! You will be entitled to this meat! Page Seven. At nightfall, Rahan was securely restrained in a hut, and the hunters, satisfied, quickly fell asleep. Suddenly. Quiet, I have come to deliver you, Rahan! I took your knife back from Yvak! This woman was the one he saved from the panther. But she did not have time to cut the ties. I have been watching you all day, Aloona! From your looks, I suspected that you would come to the aid of the captive! For betraying the clan, you will be taken to the clearing of sacrifices! You will be put to death! At sunrise! The clan leader brutally dragged Aloona. Aloona will die for trying to help Rahan! And Rahan cannot do anything for her. Nothing! Page Eight. The hunters had brought back a wild boar and, at dawn, Rahan had to resume the tedious chore of cooking. He had been entrusted to watch over the women. We would like to let you escape, Rahan! But the anger of our people would be terrible! Oh? Would they? They took Aloona to the sacrifice clearing. The son of Crao was watching the nearby river. And suddenly. If you help Rahan, he will save Aloona! Here is what you're going to do. A few arrow ranges away, Yvak and his people were watching for the appearance of the sun. Aloona only had a few moments to live. Page Nine. The sky slowly cleared on the horizon and suddenly, a certain horizon burst into flames. The time has come to pay for your betrayal Aloona! The hunters were going to draw their bows. When. No! Eh? You dare to abandon the meat!? How did you escape women? They are the ones who freed Rahan! They be cursed! As for you, you will join the territory of shadows. The archers adjusted their aim on Rahan. But their arrows were lost in the foliage. Page Ten. But others whistled past. Stop! If you spare Rahan, he will reveal a wonderful secret to you! A joyous clamor arose under the cover, the women came running. The meat! The Meat! What is this!? Have you also given up cooking meat!? But no Yvak! But no! The meat cooks itself! Have you gone crazy? The son of Crao smiled. The women's enthusiasm prove that his idea was good. Rahan wanted to reveal to you the secret of meat-that-cooks-itself! Come and see! Page Eleven. If you are telling the truth, you and Aloona will be saved! Otherwise, you will both be slaughtered! The clan returned to the village path. A moment later. Oh! You can thank your companions! They are the ones who helped Rahan make this thing! The light current carried along, one after the other, the bark blades of the "Thing". And the skewered boar rotated slowly, very slowly, above the embers. Your companions will no longer have to suffer from this nagging chore! All the members of the clan, amazed, could not take their eyes off the strange “Water Machine.” It is now the river that cooks your meat! Page Twelve. The wild boar gently took a wonderful red color. Meat has never been so evenly roasted! You have to be a sorcerer or an inventor to do something like that! Rahan is neither! Rahan is just a hunter who knows how to observe and take advantage of what chance makes him discover. The son of Crao remembered the shrub turning above the torrent. A very unusual incident which had nevertheless given him the idea for this machine. Here, Brother! You will need it to cut out the pieces! This honor belongs to you! Such a discovery could change the life of “Those Who Walk Upright”. This is why the sudden change of heart of Yvak and his team was not surprising. It was often like this in those fierce times.

Rahan. Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html Source of Rahan Comics: Philippe Ropers. https://vk.com/topic-203785966_47424128 Episode One hundred and Two. By Roger Lecureux, drawn by Andre Cheret. To Avenge Rahan! As soon as the tragic news of the death of Rahan spread, killed by the sorcerer Handdak during a fight on the sacred dolmen, anger seized the closest clans. Hadko and his people, who returned to their territory after having spread this news, were going to face the vengeful fury of the river clan. These are the cowards who let Rahan die! They must die too! Weakened by drugs, Hadko's men were easily captured. Once again they recounted what they had seen. The duel on the sacred dolmen. Rahan falling under the arrows of their sorcerer. Page Two. Handdak piercing Rahan's heart with several spear blows. So many details which further inflamed the avengers of the son of Crao! Rahan was the most loyal, the most generous of hunters! And you did nothing to prevent this crime! You are Handdak's accomplices! Rahan died at dawn, you say? Well, we will wait until dawn to avenge him! You will be burned to death! All! All! All? The chief of the river clan was unaware that Hadko had managed to escape his men. Burnt alive! And they allow themselves to be led to this pit like animals! Hadko's companions, in fact, allowed themselves to be pushed into a deep pit without reacting. Rahan will be avenged! The river clan swears by it! Our revenge will be as brutal, as violent as the wrath of heaven! A lance of fire had just streaked through the clouds. Thunder rumbled. Page Three. A large thunderstorm began to crackle, lashing Hadko who was fleeing towards his territory. Hadko is running out of breath. He has lost his former vigor. Handdak's potions have devoured his strength! For the first time the man had became aware of the harmful effects of the drug. At the same moment, Handdak-the-sorcerer was meditating while taking refugee under the sacred dolmen. He smiled strangely as he thought of the son of Crao lying on that slab. The rain, which increased in violence, lashed Rahan's body. And suddenly. Suddenly. Suddenly. This body began to quiver! At first there was an imperceptible twitching of the muscles. The rain stung and harassed. And then. Page Four. The eyes half opened. The gaze rested without seeing, on the ivory knife in his clenched hands. Where is Handdak? Where is the Clan? How did Rahan arrive here!? The son of Crao still felt numb. But he could hear himself speaking. He thought so he lived! The surroundings of the sacred dolmen were deserted, as was the village at the foot of the hill. What happened to the clan? How many days, how many nights did Rahan sleep!? Rahan remembered his fight with Handdak. The period of the sorcerer shooting him a poisoned arrow. Then he felt like he was sinking into an endless abyss. Nothingness. Rahan was therefore at the mercy of Handdak! Why did Handdak not finish him? The son of Crao felt no pain and his body bore no wounds, no injuries! It was then that a howl of fear resounded at the foot of the hill. Rahan is alive! Rahan has returned from the “Territory of the shadows!” Page Five. But it is too late! All our people will perish at dawn, massacred by those of the river who want to avenge “Fire Hair!” Hadko staggered up the hill to the dolmen. As the sorcerer fled, Rahan jumped close to him. What does all this mean, Handdak? Why do those of the river want to avenge Rahan!? Because they think you are dead! Everyone thinks you are dead! Rahan does not understand any of this! Explain yourself Handdak! Explain yourself! The sorcerer had a sad smile. I never wanted, nor even wished for your death, Rahan! But I wanted to preserve my authority among my people. Do you remember our first meeting, when Hadko thought he saw me killing the "Goraks" when it was you who were killing them? It was because I had experimented with a new drug on him! A drug that allows me to impose my will on those who absorb it and make them see things that are not there! Page Six. The night before our duel I offered this drug to all the members of the clan. I put the whole clan under hypnosis. During our duel, after one of my arrows had put you to sleep, I convinced the clan that I was going to finish you off! And everyone thought they saw my arrows pierce your chest and stomach. Everyone thought they saw my spear plunge into your heart! For them, I was now the one who had loyally triumphed over Rahan-the-brave! They could go and spread the news of the death of “Fire hair!” everywhere. While I waited here for you to wake up! And thanks to your cursed drugs we were too weakened to resist those from the river! And at dawn all our people will be burned alive! If those on the river see that Rahan is still alive, they will have no reason to avenge him! But will Rahan arrive in time!? The son of Crao was already descending the hill towards the forest. Page Seven. The storm had stopped, but the clouds still obscured the moon. The path of the “Four Hands” is too perilous! Rahan will save time using the river. A moment later he let himself be carried away by the river which had swelled with torrential rain. The dawn will come soon! May Rahan arrive in time to prevent this horrible revenge! The darkness dissipated slowly. And suddenly. Oh, Rahan remembers. The eddies carried him towards this dam, the idea of which he had once given to those of the river. As the sky rose, he heard the avenging clamors in the distance. Too late! Rahan can do nothing more for these unfortunate men! Down there, those from the river surrounded the great pit where the drugged clan was piled up listlessly. The dawn has come for Rahan to be avenged! No! No one heard the anguished howl of the son of Crao. His “Avengers” down there threw torches into the pit! Page Eight. The first flames rose and Rahan imagined fear and panic, torture. Nothing could save them from the inferno! Nothing? Yes! The water. Water that masters fire! Clinging to this last hope, Rahan leaned on a trunk of the dam. Ra-ha-ha! With a fantastic effort he succeeded in unblocking this trunk, dislocating the assembly! And under the push. The waters, the dam gave way releasing a huge wave! Submerged, carried away, despite all, the son of Crao launched his cry of victory! Vapors rose when the water poured into this pit, extinguishing and suffocating the blaze. Ah! They are all alive! The river did not want our revenge! Page Nine. It is not the river that did not want this revenge, Shahouk! It is Rahan! Rahan is alive! The son of Crao had just appeared, like a genie emerging from the waters! As those on the river cheered him, he became harsh. Rahan will explain to you how Handdak made him appear dead! But even if Rahan's death had been real. It would not have been paid for by death. Of these half-conscious beings! Revenge is not a good feeling, brothers! As for you who almost died without even reacting, like the stupidest of animals, Rahan hopes that you will regain your dignity as men and women! It is not in drugs that make you “forget” that those-who-walk-upright can find happiness! They find it in the struggle for life, in friendship and brotherhood! The sun was already high when the dolmen clan, led by the son of Crao, returned to their territory. And. What. What's going on up there? What are Handdak and Hadko doing? Page Ten. Near the sacred Dolmen, a thick greenish smoke rose, the chief and the sorcerer were busy. Suddenly discovering the clan climbing the hill, they shouted with joy. Rahan did it! Rahan saved ours! What a strange smell! What a curious smoke! What are you preparing for, Handdak!? You opened our eyes, “Fire hair”! All these burning herbs are the ones I collected throughout the seasons. The ones with which I prepared my concoctions of oblivion, you understand? Yes, Rahan understood. The sorcerer and Hadko finally banished the drugs that had done so much harm to their clan! They would experience a new life. Rahan has not joined you in the "Shadow Realm" yet, Crao! But Rahan hopes you are happy with him! Moved and happy, Crao's son watched the cursed herbs disappear in smoke on this dolmen which had been the scene of his "Death" and his "resurrection."

JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN. by Dalton Trumbo. Introduction. World War One began like a summer festival, all billowing skirts and golden epaulets. Millions upon millions cheered from the sidewalks while plumed imperial highnesses, serenities, field marshals and other such fools paraded through the capital cities of Europe at the head of their shining legions. It was a season of generosity, a time for boasts, bands, poems, songs, innocent prayers. It was an August made palpitant and breathless by the pre-nuptial nights of young gentlemen-officers and the girls they left permanently behind them. One of the Highland regiments went over the top in its first battle behind forty kilted bagpipers, skirling away for all they were worth, at machine guns. Nine million corpses later, when the bands stopped and the serenities started running, the wail of bagpipes would never again sound quite the same. It was the last of the romantic wars. And Johnny Got His Gun was probably the last American novel written about it before an entirely different affair called World War Two got under way. The book has a weird political history. Written in 1938 when pacifism was anathema to the American left and most of the center, it went to the printers in the spring of 1939 and was published on September third, ten days after the Nazi-Soviet pact, two days after the start of World War Two. Shortly thereafter, on the recommendation of Mister Joseph Wharton Lippincott (who felt it would stimulate sales), serial rights were sold to The Daily Worker of New York City. For months thereafter the book was a rally point for the left. After Pearl Harbor its subject matter seemed as inappropriate to the times as the shriek of bagpipes. Mister Paul Blanshard, speaking of army censorship in The Right to Read (1955) says, "A few pro-Axis foreign-language magazines had been banned, as well as three books, including Dalton Trumbo's pacifist novel Johnny Get Your Gun, produced during the period of the Hitler-Stalin pact." Since Mister Blanshard fell into what I hope was unconscious error both as to the period of the book's "production" and the title under which it was "produced," I can't place too much faith in his story of its suppression. Certainly I was not informed of it, I received a number of letters from service men overseas who had read it through Army libraries, and, in 1945, I myself ran across a copy in Okinawa while fighting was still in progress. If, however, it had been banned and I had known about it, I doubt that I should have protested very loudly. There are times when it may be needful for certain private rights to give way to the requirements of a larger public good. I know that's a dangerous thought, and I shouldn't wish to carry it too far, but World War Two was not a romantic war. As the conflict deepened, and Johnny went out of print altogether, its unavailability became a civil liberties issue with the extreme American right. Peace organizations and "Mothers'" groups from all over the country showered me with fiercely sympathetic letters denouncing Jews, Communists, New Dealers and international bankers, who had suppressed my novel to intimidate millions of true Americans who demanded an immediate negotiated peace. My correspondents, a number of whom used elegant stationery and sported tidewater addresses, maintained a network of communications that extended to the detention camps of pro-Nazi internees. They pushed the price of the book above six dollars for a used copy, which displeased me for a number of reasons, one of them fiscal. They proposed a national rally for peace-now, with me as cheer leader; they promised (and delivered) a letter campaign to pressure the publisher for a fresh edition. Nothing could have convinced me so quickly that Johnny was exactly the sort of book that shouldn't be reprinted until the war was at an end. The publishers agreed. At the insistence of friends who felt my correspondents' efforts could adversely affect the war effort, I foolishly reported their activities to the F B I. But when a beautifully matched pair of investigators arrived at my house, their interest lay not in the letters but in me. I have the feeling that it still does, and it serves me right. After 1945, those two or three new editions which appeared found favor with the general left, and apparently were completely ignored by everybody else, including all those passionate war-time mothers. It was out of print again during the Korean War, at which time I purchased the plates rather than have them sold to the Government for conversion into munitions. And there the story ends, or begins. Reading it once more after so many years, I've had to resist a nervous itch to touch it up here, to change it there, to clarify, correct, elaborate, cut. After all, the book is twenty years younger than I, and I have changed so much, and it hasn't. Or has it? Is it possible for anything to resist change, even a mere commodity that can be bought, buried, banned, damned, praised, or ignored for all the wrong reasons? Probably not. Johnny held a different meaning for three different wars. Its present meaning is what each reader conceives it to be, and each reader is gloriously different from every other reader, and each is also changing. I've let it remain as it was to see what it is. Book One. The Dead. Chapter One. He wished the phone would stop ringing. It was bad enough to be sick let alone having a phone ring all night long. Boy was he sick. Not from any of their sour french wine either. A man couldn't hold enough of it to get a head this big. His stomach was going round and round and round. Fine thing nobody'd answer that phone. It sounded like it was ringing in a room about a million miles wide. His head was a million miles wide too. The hell with the telephone. That damn bell must be at the other end of the world. He would have to walk for a couple years to get to it. Ring ring ring all night long. Maybe somebody wanted something bad. Telephones ringing at night are important. You'd think they'd pay attention to it. How could they expect him to answer it anyhow? He was tired and his head was plenty big. You could stick a whole phone in his ear and he couldn't even feel it. He must have been drinking dynamite. Why didn't somebody answer that goddam telephone? "Hey Joe. Front and center." Here he was sick as hell and like a damned fool making his way through the night shipping room toward the telephone. It was so noisy you wouldn't think anybody could hear a tiny sound like a phone ringing. Yet he had. He'd heard it above the click-clickclick of the Battle Creek wrappers and the rattle of the belt conveyors and the howl of the rotary ovens upstairs and the rumble of steel route bins being hauled into place and the sputter of motors in the garage being tuned up against the morning's work and the scream of dollies that needed oil why the hell didn't somebody oil them? He walked down the middle aisle between the steel bins that were being filled with bread. He threaded his way through the floor litter of dollies and boxes and rumpled cartons and crippled loaves. The boys looked at him as he went. He remembered their faces floating by him as he moved toward the telephone. Dutch and Little Dutch and Whitey who took shots in his spine and Pablo and Rudy and all the boys. They looked at him curiously as he passed them. Maybe that was because he was scared inside and showed it outside. He got to the phone. "Hello." "Hello son. Come on home now." "All right mother I'll be right there." He went into the lean-to office with the wide glass front where Jody Simmons the night foreman kept a close watch on his crew. "Jody I got to go home. My father just died." "Died? Gosh kid that's too bad. Sure kid you run along. Rudy. Hey Rudy. Grab a truck and drive Joe home. His old , his father just died. Sure kid go on home. I'll have one of the boys punch you out. That's tough kid. Go home." Rudy stepped on it. It was raining outside because it was December and Los Angeles just before Christmas. The tires sizzled against the wet pavement as they went. It was the quietest night he had ever heard except for the tires sizzling and the clatter of the Ford echoing between deserted buildings in an empty street. Rudy sure stepped on it. There was a rattle somewhere back of them in the truck body that kept the same time no matter how fast they went. Rudy didn't say anything. He just drove. Way out Figueroa past big old houses and then smaller houses and then on out some more to the south end. Rudy stopped the car. "Thanks Rudy, I'll let you know when everything's finished. I'll be back to work in a couple days." "Sure Joe. That's all right. It's tough. I'm sorry goodnight." The Ford grabbed for traction. Then its motor roared and it went side slipping down the street. Water bubbled along the curb. The rain pattered down steadily. He stood there for a moment to take a good breath and then he started for the place. The place was on the alley above a garage behind a two story house. To get to it he walked down a narrow driveway which was between two houses close together. It was black between the houses. Rain from the two roofs met there and spattered down into wide puddles with a queer wet echo like water being poured into a cistern. His feet squished in the water as he went. When he got out from between the two houses he saw lights on over the garage. He opened the door. A rush of hot air swept over him. It was hot air perfumed with the soap and scented rubbing alcohol they used for bathing his father and with the powder they put on him afterward to fight off bedsores. Everything was very quiet. He tip-toed upstairs his wet shoes still squishing a little. In the living room his father lay dead with a sheet pulled over his face. He had been sick a long while and they had kept him in the living room because the glassed-in porch which was the bedroom for his father and mother and sisters was too drafty. He walked over to his mother and touched her shoulder. She wasn't crying very hard. "Did you call someone?" "Yes they'll be here anytime. I wanted you to be here first." His younger sister was still asleep on the glassed-in porch but his older sister only thirteen was crumpled in a corner in her bathrobe catching her breath and sobbing quietly. He looked over at her. She was crying like a woman. He hadn't realized before that she was practically grown up. She had been growing up all the time and he hadn't noticed till now when she was crying because her father was dead. A knock came on the door downstairs. "It's them. Let's go into the kitchen. It'll be better." They had a little trouble getting his sister into the kitchen but she came quietly enough. It seemed she couldn't walk. Her face was blank. Her eyes were big and she was gasping more than crying. His mother sat on a stool in the kitchen and took his sister into her arms. Then he went to the head of the stairs and called down quietly. "Come in." Two men in gleaming clean collars opened the door down there and started up the stairs. They carried a long wicker basket. Quickly he stepped into the living room and pulled aside the sheets to have a look at his father before they reached the top of the stairs. He looked down at a tired face that was only fifty-one years old. He looked down and thought dad I feel lots older than you. I was sorry for you dad. Things weren't going well and they never would have gone well for you and it's just as good you're dead. People've got to be quicker and harder these days than you were dad. Goodnight and good-dreams. I won't forget you and I'm not as sorry for you today as I was yesterday. I loved you dad goodnight. They came into the room. He turned and walked into the kitchen to his mother and sister. The other sister who was only seven still slept. There were sounds from the front room. The men's footsteps as they tip-toed around the bed. A faint woosh of covers being thrown toward the foot. Then a sound of bedsprings relaxing after eight months' use. Then a sound of wicker squeaking as it took up the burden the bed had left off with. Then after a heavy squeaking from all parts of the basket a shuffling of feet moving out of the front room and down the stairs. He wondered if they were carrying the basket evenly down the stairs or if the head was lower than the feet or if it was in any way uncomfortable. His father performing the same task would have carried the basket very gently. When the door at the foot of the stairs closed behind them his mother began to shake a little. Her voice came like dry air. "That's not Bill. It may seem like it but it's not." He patted his mother's shoulder. His sister relaxed down on the floor again. That was all. Well why couldn't it be all then? How many times was he going to have to go through it? It was all over and finished and why couldn't the goddam phone ever stop ringing? He was nutty because he had a hangover a big hangover and he was having bad dreams. Pretty soon if he had to he'd wake up and answer the phone but somebody should do it for him if they had any consideration at all because he was tired and sick of it. Things were getting floaty and sickly. Things were so quiet. Things were so goddam still. A hangover headache thumps and clatters and raises hell inside your skull. But this wasn't any hangover. He was a sick man. He was a sick man and he was remembering things. Like coming out of ether. But you'd think the telephone would stop ringing sometime. It couldn't just go on forever. He couldn't go over and over the same business of answering it and hearing his father was dead and then going home through a rainy night. He'd catch cold if he did that much more. Besides his father could only die once. The telephone bell was just part of a dream. It had sounded different from any other telephone bell or any other sound because it had meant death. After all that bell was a particular kind of thing a very particular kind of thing as old Prof Eldridge used to say in Senior English. And a particular kind of thing sticks with you but there's no use of it sticking too close. That bell and its message and everything about it was way back in time and he was finished with it. The bell was ringing again. Way far off as if echoing through a lot of shutters in his mind he could hear it. He felt as if he were tied down and couldn't answer it yet he felt as if he had to answer it. The bell sounded as lonesome as Christ ringing out in the bottom of his mind waiting for an answer. And they couldn't make connections. With each ring it seemed to get lonesomer. With each ring he got more scared. He drifted again. He was hurt. He was bad hurt. The bell was fading. He was dreaming. He wasn't dreaming. He was awake even though he couldn't see. He was awake even though he couldn't hear a thing except a telephone that really wasn't ringing. He was mighty scared. He remembered how when he was a kid he read The Last Days of Pompeii and awakened in the middle of a dark night crying in terror with his face suffocating in the pillow and thinking that the top of one of his Colorado mountains had blown off and that the covers were lava and that he was entombed while yet alive and that he would lie there dying forever. He had that same gasping feeling now. He had that same cowardly griping in his bowels. He was unchristly scared so he gathered his strength and made like a man buried in loose earth clawing out with his hands toward air. Then he sickened and choked and fainted half away and was dragged back by pain. It was all over his body like electricity. It seemed to shake him hard and then throw him back against the bed exhausted and completely quiet. He lay there feeling the sweat pour out of his skin. Then he felt something else. He felt hot damp skin all over him and the dampness enabled him to feel his bandages. He was wrapped in them from top to bottom. Even his head. He really was hurt then. The shock caused his heart to smash against his ribs. He grew prickly all over. His heart was pounding away in his chest but he couldn't hear the pulse in his ear. Oh god then he was deaf. Where did they get that stuff about bombproof dugouts when a man in one of them could be hit so hard that the whole complicated business of his ears could be blown away leaving him deaf so deaf he couldn't hear his own heart beat? He had been hit and he had been hit bad and now he was deaf. Not just a little deaf. Not just halfway deaf. He was stone deaf. He lay there for a while with the pain ebbing and thinking this will give me something to chew on all right all right. What about the rest of the guys? Maybe they didn't come out so lucky. There were some good boys down in that hole. How'll it seem being deaf and shouting at people? You write things on paper. No that's wrong they write things on paper to you. It isn't anything to kick up your heels and dance about but it might be worse. Only when you're deaf you're lonesome. You're godforsaken. So he'd never hear again. Well there were a hell of a lot of things he didn't want to hear again. He never wanted to hear the biting little Castanet sound of a machine gun or the high whistle of a seventy-five coming down fast or the slow thunder as it hit or the whine of an airplane overhead or the yells of a guy trying to explain to somebody that he's got a bullet in his belly and that his breakfast is coming out through the front of him and why won't somebody stop going forward and give him a hand only nobody can hear him they're so scared themselves. The hell with it. Things were going in and out of focus. It was like looking into one of those magnified shaving mirrors and then moving it toward you and away from you. He was sick and probably out of his head and he was badly hurt and he was lonesome deaf but he was also alive and he could still hear far away and sharp the sound of a telephone bell. He was sinking and rising and then going in lazy quiet black circles. Everything was alive with sound. He was nuts all right. He caught a glimpse of the big ditch where he and the guys used to go swimming in Colorado before he came to Los Angeles before he came to the bakery. He could hear the splash of water as Art did one of his high dives he's a fool for diving so far why can't the rest of us do it? He looked out across the rolling meadows of Grand Mesa eleven thousand feet in the sky and saw acres of columbines stirring in a cool August breeze and heard far off the roar of mountain streams. He saw his father pulling a sled with his mother on it one Christmas morning. He heard the fresh snow squealing under the runners of the sled. The sled was his Christmas present and his mother was laughing like a girl and his dad was grinning in his slow wrinkly way. They seemed to have a good time his mother and his father. Especially then. They used to flirt with each other right in front of him before the girls were born. Do you remember this? Do you remember that? I cried. You talked like this. You wore your hair so. You picked me up and I remembered how strong you were and you put me on old Frank because he was gentle and after that we rode across the river on the ice with old Frank picking his way carefully like a dog. You remember the telephone when you were courting me? I remember everything when I was courting you even the gander that used to rush and hiss at me when I took you in my arms. You remember the telephone when you were courting me silly? I remember. Then you remember the party line going eighteen miles along Cole Creek Valley and only five customers? I remember I remember the way you looked with your big eyes and your smooth forehead you haven't changed. You remember the telephone line and how new it was? Oh it was lonely out there with nobody in three or four miles and nobody really in the world but you. And me waiting for the telephone to ring. It rang two times for us remember? Two rings and you were calling from the grocery store when the store was closed. And the receivers all along the line all five of them going click-click Bill is calling Macia click-click-click. And then your voice how funny it was to hear your voice the first time over a telephone how wonderful it always was. "Hello Macia." "Hello Bill how are you?" "I'm fine are you through with the work?" "We just finished the dishes." "I suppose everybody is listening again tonight." "I suppose." "Don't they know I love you? You'd think that was enough for them." "Maybe it isn't." "Macia why don't you play a piece on the piano?" "All right Bill. Which one?" "Whatever one you like I like them all." "All right Bill. Wait till I fix the receiver." And then way out on Cole Creek way west on the other side of the mountains from Denver music tinkling over telephone wires that were brand new and wonderful. His mother before she was his mother before she thought particularly of becoming his mother would go over to the piano the only one on Cole Creek and play the Beautiful Blue Ohio or perhaps My Pretty Red Wing. She would play it clear through and his father in Shale City would be listening and thinking isn't it wonderful I can sit here eight miles away and hold a little piece of black business to my ear and hear far off the music of Macia my beautiful my Macia. "Could you hear it Bill?" "Yes. It was lovely." Then somebody else maybe six miles up or down the line would break into the conversation without being ashamed at all. "Macia I just picked up the hook and heard you playing. Why don't you play After the Ball is Over? Clem'd like to hear it if you don't mind." His mother would go back to the piano and play After the Ball is Over and Clem somewhere would be listening to music for maybe the first time in three or four months. Farmers' wives would be sitting with their work done and receivers to their ears listening too and getting dreamy and thinking about things their husbands wouldn't suspect. And so it went with everybody up and down the lonesome bed of Cole Creek asking his mother to play a favorite piece and his father listening from Shale City and liking it but perhaps growing a little impatient occasionally and saying to himself I wish the people out on Cole Creek would understand that this is a courtship not a concert. Sounds sounds sounds everywhere with the bell fading out and returning and him so sick and deaf he wanted to die. He was wallowing in blackness and far away the telephone bell was ringing with nobody there to answer it. A piano was tinkling far far away and he knew his mother was playing it for his dead father before his father was dead and before she had any thought of him her son. The piano kept time with the bell and the bell with the piano and in back of it there was thick silence and a yearning to listen and lone-someness. Now the moon shines tonight on pretty Red Wing The birds are sighing, the night wind crying. Chapter Two. His mother was singing in the kitchen. He could hear her singing there and the sound of her voice was the sound of home. She sang the same tune over and over again. She never sang the words to it just the tune in a kind of absent voice as if she were thinking of something else and the singing were only a way of killing time. When she was busiest she always sang. It was the fall of the year. The poplars and cottonwoods had turned red and yellow. His mother was working and singing in the kitchen over the old coal-burning stove. She was stirring apple butter in a big crock. Or she was canning peaches. The peaches sent a rich spicy smell through the whole house. She was making jelly. The pulp from the fruit hung in a flour sack over the cooler part of the stove. Through the cloth the juices oozed stickily down into a pan. The pan had a thick pinkish-cream scum around its edges. In the center the juice was clear and red. She was baking bread. She baked bread twice a week. She kept a jar of starter in the ice box from baking time to baking time so she never had to worry about yeast. The bread was heavy and brown and sometimes it swelled two or three inches over the top of the pan. When she took it out of the oven she smeared the brown crust with butter and let it cool. But even better than the bread were the rolls. She baked them to come out of the oven just before supper. They were steaming hot and you put butter inside them and it melted and then you put jam on them or apricot preserves with nuts in the syrup. That was all you wanted for supper although you had to eat other things of course. On summer afternoons you took a thick slice of the bread and put cold butter on it. Then you sprinkled sugar over the butter and that was better than cake. Or you got a thick slice of sweet bermuda onion and put it between two slabs of bread and butter and nobody anywhere in the world had anything more delicious to eat. In the fall his mother worked from day to day and from week to week scarcely ever getting out of the kitchen. She canned peaches and cherries and raspberries and black berries and plums and apricots and made jams and jellies and preserves and chili sauces. And while she worked she sang. She sang the same hymn in an absent voice without words as if she were thinking of something else all the while. There was a hamburger man down on Fifth and Main. He was slight and stooped and pasty-faced and always glad to talk with anyone who stopped by his stand. He was the only hamburger man in Shale City so he had a monopoly on the business. People said he was a dope fiend and that sometime he would get dangerous. But he never did and he made the best hamburgers anyone ever ate. He had a gas flare over his gas plate and you could smell the wonderful odor of onions frying there for a block on either side of his stand. He came out about five or six in the afternoons and made hamburgers until ten or eleven. You had to wait if you wanted a sandwich. His mother loved the hamburger man's sandwiches. On Saturday nights his father worked late at the store. He would go down town on Saturday nights and wait until his father got his pay check. At about a quarter to ten when the store was getting ready to close his father would give him thirty cents for three hamburgers. He would rush with his money over to the hamburger man to get a place in line. He would order three hamburgers to go with lots of onions and sweet mustard. By the time the order was filled his father would already be on the way home. The hamburger man would put the sandwiches in a bag and he would put the bag inside his shirt next to his body. Then he would run all the way home so that the hamburgers would still be warm. He would run through the sharp autumn nights feeling the heat of the hamburgers next to his stomach. Each Saturday night he tried to beat last Saturday's time so the sandwiches would be even warmer. He would get home and pull them out of his shirt front and his mother would eat one right away. By that time his father would be home too. It was a great Saturday night feast. The girls would be in bed being so young and it seemed to him that he had his father and mother completely to himself. He was in a way grown up. He envied the hamburger man because the hamburger man could have all the sandwiches he wanted. In the fall the snow came. Usually there was snow for Thanksgiving but sometimes it didn't come until middle December. The first snowfall was the most wonderful thing on earth. His father always waked him early his voice booming out about the snow. It was usually a wet snow and it clung to everything it touched. Even the wire fence around the chicken coop in the backyard would hold the snow maybe a half inch deep. The chickens never stopped being puzzled and alarmed about the first snow. They would walk carefully in it and shake their feet and the roosters would talk about it complainingly all day long. The outbuildings were always beautiful and a fence post would have a cap four inches high. The birds in vacant lots would make little patterns in the snow crossed up once in a while by a rabbit track. His father never failed to wake him early when the snow fell. First he rushed to the window to look. Then he got into his heavy clothes and his mackinaw and his boots and his sheepskin gloves and took his flexible flyer and went out with the rest of the kids and didn't come back till his feet were numb and his nose was frosty. The snow was a wonderful thing. In the spring there were primroses ail over the vacant lots. They opened in the morning and closed when the sun grew hot and then opened again in the evening. Each evening the kids went on primrose hunts. They brought back great bouquets of white flowers as big as your hand and put them in flat bowls of water. On May Day they made baskets and filled them with primroses hiding a little candy beneath the flowers. When it was dark they went from house to house and left a basket and knocked on the door and ran away fast into the night. Lincoln Beechy came to town. It was the first airplane Shale City ever saw. They had it in a tent in the middle of the race track over in the fair grounds. Day in and day out people filed through the tent looking at it. It seemed to be all wire and cloth. People couldn't understand how a man would risk his life just on the strength of a wire. One little Wire gone wrong and it meant the end of Lincoln Beechy. Away up in front of the plane ahead of the propellers was a little seat with a stick in front of it. That was where the great aviator sat. Everyone in Shale City was pleased with the idea of Lincoln Beechy coming to town. It was a wonderful thing. Shale City was really becoming a metropolis. Lincoln Beechy didn't stop at every little stick-in-the-mud town. He stopped only in places like Denver and Shale City and Salt Lake and he was going on to San Francisco. The whole town turned out the day Lincoln Beechy looped the loop. He did it five times. It was the damnedest thing anybody ever saw. Mister Hargraves who was superintendent of schools made a speech before the flight. He told about how the invention of the airplane was the greatest step forward man had made in a hundred years. The airplane said Mister Hargraves would cut down the distance between nations and peoples. The airplane would be a great instrument in making people understand one another in making people love one another. The airplane said Mister Hargraves was ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity and mutual understanding. Everyone would be friends said Mister Hargraves when the airplane knitted the world together so that the people of the world understood each other. After the speech Lincoln Beechy looped the loop five times and left town. A couple months later his airplane fell into San Francisco Bay and Lincoln Beechy was drowned. Shale City felt as if it had lost a resident. The Shale City Monitor ran an editorial. It said that even though the great Lincoln Beechy was dead the airplane the instrument of peace the knitter together of peoples would go on. His birthday fell in December. Each birthday his mother cooked a big dinner and he had his friends over to the house. Each of his friends also had birthday dinners so there were at least six big affairs during the year for the guys to get together. They usually had chicken and there was always a birthday cake and ice cream. The guys all brought presents. He would never forget the time Glen Hogan brought him a pair of brown silk socks. That was before he had long trousers. The socks seemed to mean a step forward into a grownup future. They were very handsome. After the party he put them on and stared at them for a long while. He got the long pants to go with them three months later. The guys all liked his father probably because his father liked the guys. After the dinner was over his father always took them all to a show. They would put on their mackinaws and go outside into the snow and tramp down to the Elysium theatre. It was great feeling warm on the inside from food and your face cold on the outside from zero air and a show to look forward to. He could hear their footsteps squeaking in the snow even now. He could see his father leading the pack down to the Elysium. He remembered that the shows were always good. In the fall there was the County Fair. There were bucking bronchos and steers to be bulldogged and bareback Indian races and trotting races. There was always a bunch of Indians headed by the great squaw Chipeta. A street in Shale City was named after her. The town of Ouray Colorado had been named after Chief Ouray her husband. The Indians Chipeta brought with her didn't do much but squat around and stare but Chipeta herself was full of smiles and talk about the early days. A carnival came to town during the fair and you could see women cut in half and motorcycle riders defying death inside a straight up and down circular wall. In the main auditorium of the fair grounds there were canned fruits gleaming through Mason jars and displays of embroidery and rows of cakes and piles of bread and huge squashes and extra-fancy potatoes. In the livestock pens there were steers that looked as square as an outhouse and pigs almost as big as cows and thoroughbred chickens. Fair week was the biggest week of the year. In a way it was even bigger than Christmas. You bought whips with tassels on the ends and it was a mark of favor if you flicked the legs of a girl you liked. There was a smell about the fair grounds you never forgot. A smell you never ceased dreaming of. He would always smell it somewhere back in his mind as long as he lived. In the summer they went out to the big ditch north of town and stripped off their clothes and lay around on its banks and talked. The water would be warm from the summer air and heat would be rising off the brown-gray land like steam. They would swim for a little while then they would go back on the bank and sit around all naked and tan and talk. They would talk about bicycles and girls and dogs and guns. They would talk about camping trips and rabbit hunting and girls and fishing. They would talk about the hunting knives they all wanted but only Glen Hogan had. They would talk about girls. When they came of an age to take girls out on dates they always took them to the pavilion in the fair grounds. They began to get very dressy. They talked about ties with matching handkerchiefs and they wore brogue shoes and shirts that had bright red and green and yellow stripes in them. Glen Hogan had seven silk shirts. He had most of the girls too. It got to be an important matter whether or not you had a car and it was a very humiliating thing to walk your girl to the pavilion. Sometimes you didn't have enough money to go to the dance so you would drive lazily by the fair grounds and hear the music coming through the night from the pavilion. The songs all had meaning and the words were very serious. You felt all swelled up inside and you wished you were over there at the pavilion. You wondered who your girl was dancing with. Then you would light a cigarette and talk about something else. It was quite a thing to light a cigarette. You only did it at night when nobody would see you. You made a serious business of holding the cigarette in a properly careless fashion. And the first guy in the bunch able to inhale was the greatest guy on earth until the rest caught up with him. Down at Jim O'Connell's cigar store the old men sat around and talked about the war. O'Connell's was very cool in the back room. Before Colorado went dry it was a saloon and it still had the smell of beer in the floorboards on damp days. The old men sat there on high chairs and watched the pool tables and spat into big brass spitoons and talked about England and France and in the end about Rooshia. Rooshia was always on the point of starting a big offensive that would push the goddam Germans right back on Berlin. That would be the end of your war. Then his father decided to leave Shale City. They went to Los Angeles. There he became conscious for the first time about the war. He waked to the war when Roumania entered. It seemed very important. He had never heard of Roumania except in geography classes. But the entry of Roumania into the war occurred on the same day the Los Angeles newspapers carried a story of two young Canadian soldiers who had been crucified by the Germans in full view of their comrades across Nomansland. That made the Germans nothing better than animals and naturally you got interested and wanted Germany to get the tar kicked out of her. Everybody talked about the oil wells and the wheat fields of Roumania and how they would supply the Allies and how this surely was the end of the war. But the Germans walked right through Roumania and they took Bucharest and Queen Marie had to leave her palace. Then his father died and America entered the war and he had to come too and here he was. He lay and thought oh Joe Joe this is no place for you. This was no war for you. This thing wasn't any of your business. What do you care about making the world safe for democracy? All you wanted to do Joe was to live. You were born and raised in the good healthy country of Colorado and you had no more to do with Germany or England or France or even with Washington D.C. than you had to do with the man in the moon. Yet here you are and it was none of your affair. Here you are Joe and you're hurt worse than you think. You're hurt bad. Maybe it would be a lot better if you were dead and buried on the hill across the river from Shale City. Maybe there are more things wrong with you than you suspect Joe. Oh why the hell did you ever get into this mess anyhow? Because it wasn't your fight Joe. You never really knew what the fight was all about. Chapter Three. He shot up through cool waters wondering whether he'd ever make the surface or not. That was a lot of guff about people sinking three times and then drowning. He'd been rising and sinking for days weeks months who could tell? But he hadn't drowned. As he came to the surface each time he fainted into reality and as he went down again he fainted into nothingness. Long slow faints all of them while he struggled for air and life. He was fighting too hard and he knew it. A man can't fight always. If he's drowning or suffocating he's got to be smart and hold back some of his strength for the last the final the death struggle. He lay back quietly because he was no fool. If you lie back you can float. He used to float a lot when he was a kid. He knew how to do it. His last strength going into that fight when all he had to do was float. What a fool. They were working on him. It took him a little while to understand this because he couldn't hear them. Then he remembered that he was deaf. It was funny to lie there and have people in the room who were touching you watching you doctoring you and yet not within hearing distance. The bandages were still all over his head so he couldn't see them either. He only knew that way out there in the darkness beyond the reach of his ears people were working over him and trying to help him. They were taking part of his bandages off. He could feel the coolness the sudden drying of sweat on his left side. They were working on his arm. He felt the pinch of a sharp little instrument grabbing something and getting a bit of his skin with each grab. He didn't jump. He simply lay there because he had to save his strength. He tried to figure out why they were pinching him. After each pinch there was a little pull in the flesh of his upper arm and an unpleasant point of heat like friction. The pulling kept on in short little jerks with his skin getting hot each time. It hurt. He wished they'd stop. It itched. He wished they'd scratch him. He froze all over stiff and rigid like a dead cat. There was something wrong about this pricking and pulling and friction heat. He could feel the things they were doing to his arm and yet he couldn't rightly feel his arm at all. It was like he felt inside his arm. It was like he felt through the end of his arm. The nearest thing he could think of to the end of his arm was the heel of his hand. But the heel of his hand the end of his arm was high, high, high as his shoulder. Oh Jesus Christ they'd cut his left arm off. They'd cut it right off at the shoulder he could feel it plain now. Oh my god why did they do a thing like that to him? They couldn't do it the dirty bastards they couldn't do it. They had to have a paper signed or something. It was the law. You can't just go out and cut a man's arm off without asking him without getting permission because a man's arm is his own and he needs it. Oh Jesus I have to work with that arm why did you cut it off? Why did you cut my arm off answer me why did you cut my arm off? Why did you why did you why did you? He went down into the water again and fought and fought and then came up with his belly jumping and his throat aching. And all the time that he was under the water fighting with only one arm to get back he was having conversation with himself about how this thing couldn't possibly happen to him only it had. So they cut my arm off. How am I going to work now? They don't think of that. They don't think of anything but doing it their own way. Just another guy with a hole in his arm let's cut it off what do you say boys? Sure cut the guy's arm off. It takes a lot of work and a lot of money to fix up a guy's arm. This is a war and war is hell and what the hell and so to hell with it. Come on boys watch this. Pretty slick hey? He's down in bed and can't say anything and it's his tough luck and we're tired and this is a stinking war anyhow so let's cut the damn thing off and be done with it. My arm. My arm they've cut my arm off. See that stump there? That used to be my arm. Oh sure I had an arm I was born with one I was normal just like you and I could hear and I had a left arm like anybody. But what do you think of those lazy bastards cutting it off? How's that? I can't hear either. I can't hear. Write it down. Put it on a piece of paper. I can read all right. But I can't hear. Put it down on a piece of paper and hand the paper to my right arm because I have no left arm. My left arm. I wonder what they've done with it. When you cut a man's arm off you have to do something with it. You can't just leave it lying around. Do you send it to hospitals so guys can pick it to pieces and see how an arm works? Do you wrap it up in an old newspaper and throw it onto the junk heap? Do you bury it? After all it's part of a man a very important part of a man and it should be treated respectfully. Do you take it out and bury it and say a little prayer? You should because it's human flesh and it died young and it deserves a good sendoff. My ring. There was a ring on my hand. What have you done with it? Kareen gave it to me and I want it back. I can wear it on the other hand. I've got to have it because it means something it's important. If you've stolen it I'll turn you in as soon as I get these bandages off you thieving bastards you. If you've stolen it you're grave robbers because my arm that is gone is dead and you've taken the ring from it and you've robbed the dead that's what you've done. Where is my ring Kareen's ring before I go under again? I want the ring. You've got the arm isn't that enough where's my ring Kareen's ring our ring please where is it? The hand it was on is dead and it wasn't meant to be on rotten flesh. It was meant always to be on my living finger on my living hand because it meant life. "My mother gave it to me. It's a real moonstone. You can wear it." "It won't fit." "The little finger silly try the little finger." "Oh." "See I said it would fit." "Little mick." "Oh Joe I'm so scared kiss me again." "We shouldn't've turned the lights out. Your old man'll be sore." "Kiss me. Mike won't care he understands." "Little mick little mick little mick." "Don't go please don't go Joe." "When you're drafted you got to go." "They'll kill you." "Maybe. I don't think so." "Lots of people get killed who don't think so don't go Joe." "Lots of people come back." "I love you Joe." "Little mick." "I'm not mick I'm bohunk." "You're half and half but you look mick. You've got eyes and hair like a little mick." "Oh Joe." "Don't cry Kareen please don't cry." Suddenly a shadow fell across them and they both looked up. "Stop that stop it goddam you." Old Mike Birkman how did he get into the house so quietly was standing above them in the darkness glaring down. They both lay there on the sofa and stared up at him. He looked like an overgrown dwarf because his back was crooked from twenty-eight years in the coal mines of Wyoming. Twenty-eight years in the mines with an I W W red card and damning everybody. He stood and glared down at them and they made no move. "I'll have none of this business going on in my house. You think this is the back seat of a flivver? Now get up like a couple decent people. Go on. Get up from there K'reen." Kareen got up. She was only five feet one. Mike swore it was because she didn't have enough food when she was a kid but that probably wasn't the truth because her mother had been small and Kareen was perfectly formed and healthy and beautiful so beautiful. Mike was liable to exaggerate when he got excited. Kareen looked up at old Mike unafraid. "He's going away in the morning." "I know. I know girl. Get into the bedroom. Both of you. Maybe you never get another chance. Go on K'reen." Kareen took one long look at him and then with her head bent as if she were a very busy child thinking about something walked into the bedroom. "Go on in there boy. She's scared. Go in and put your arm around her." He started to go and then he felt Mike's grip against his shoulder. Mike was looking straight into his face and even in the dark his eyes could be seen. "You know how to treat her don't you. She's no whore. You know don't you?" "Yes." "Go to bed boy." He turned and went into the bedroom. An electric candle was burning on one side of the bureau. In the corner of the room beyond the candle Kareen was standing. Her waist was off lying on a chair beside her. She was wearing a slip. As he came in she was twisted around and down a little toward her hip where her hands were trying to undo the fastening of her skirt. She looked up and saw him and just looked without moving her hands or anything. She looked at him like she was seeing him for the first time and didn't know whether to like him or not. She looked at him in a way that made him want to cry. He walked over and put his arms around her carefully. She leaned to him with her forehead against his chest. Then she turned away and went over to the bed. She pulled the covers down and climbed in clothes and all. She kept her eyes on him all the time as if she was afraid he might say a sharp word or laugh or go away. She made quiet movements under the covers and then her clothes began to drop over the side of the bed from between the covers. When they were all on the floor beside the bed she smiled at him. He started slowly to take off his shirt not moving his eyes from her. She looked around the room and frowned. "Joe turn your back." "Why?" "I want to get out of bed." "Why?" "There's something I forgot. Turn your back." "No!" "Please." "No! I'll get it for you." "I want to get it myself. Turn your back." "No! I want to see you." "You can't Joe get my robe." "All right. I'll do that." "In the closet. It's red." He went to the closet and got her robe. It was a thin little thing with flowers printed on it and not enough to cover anybody really. He took it over to the bed holding it a little distance from her. "Bring it closer." "Reach for it." She laughed and then reached out quick and snatched it from him back under the covers. She had to reach so far that he saw the curve of her breast. She laughed softly all the while she struggled under the covers putting the robe on and pulling it down as if she had played a great joke on him. Then she threw the covers back and jumped out of bed and ran in her bare feet into the living room. He saw the bottoms of her feet as they whisked to the floor. They had two arches one through the instep and another that crossed it rising delicately in the ball of her foot and fading away toward the heel. He thought how beautiful her feet are how strong and beautiful they are. She came back with a bowl filled with red geraniums. She took them over to a little table that stood in front of the window. She opened the window and then turned slowly around to face him. She was leaning against the little table and kind of hanging onto it with her hands at the same time. "If you really want to see me" "But if you don't want me to I don't want to." She walked over to the closet and turned her back and slipped off the robe. Then she turned around watching her feet all the time and went over to the bed and slipped in between the covers. He turned out the light and took off his clothes and got into bed beside her. He threw his arm around her a little carelessly as if it were all an accident. She lay very quietly. He moved his leg. A little puff of air came up from between the covers and he could smell her. Clean, clean flesh and the smell of soap and sheets. He put his leg next to hers. She whirled to him and threw both of her arms around his neck and held him tight. "Oh Joe, Joe I don't want you to go." "You think I want to go?" "I'm afraid." "Of me?' "Oh no!" "Little mick." "It's nice like this isn't it?" "Um." "Were you ever like this with anyone before?" "Not with anyone I loved." "I'm glad." "It's the truth. You?" "You shouldn't ask that." "Why?" "Because I'm a lady." "You're a little mick." "I never was." "I know." "But you couldn't've known really oh Joe I wish you'd run away and not go." "There. My left arm under you. Like a cushion." "Kiss me." "Sweet little mick." "Darling. Oh darling. Oh. Oh my dear my dear my dear my" They didn't sleep very much. Sometimes they dozed off and awakened and found that they were apart and came back to each other and held one another tight very tight as if they had been lost forever and had just found each other all over again. And all night long Mike was stirring through the house and coughing and mumbling. When morning came he stood over their bed holding a breadboard which had two breakfasts on it. "Here you kids eat." Tough old Mike standing there gentle and grizzled and fierce with bloodshot painful eyes. Mike had been in jail too many times not to be good. Old Mike who hated everybody. He hated Wilson and he hated Hughes and he hated Roosevelt and he hated the socialists because they had only big talk and milk in their veins for blood. He even hated Debs a little although not much. Twenty-eight years in the coal mine had fixed him up for a fine hater. "And now I'm a railroad bull goddam me a railroad bull how's that for a filthy way to make a living?" Mike with his crooked back from the mines standing there with their breakfasts. "Here you kids. Hurry up and eat. You ain't got much time." They ate. Mike went grumbling off and didn't come into the room again. When they had eaten they lay for a little while looking up at the ceiling and digesting their food. "You rumbled." "I did not. Besides it isn't nice for you to mention it. It was you anyhow." "It was a cute little rumble. I liked it." "You're terrible. You get up first." "No you get up first." "Oh Joe kiss me don't go." "Hurry up you damned kids." "You get up." "You." "I'll count, one two three." They jumped out of bed. It was chilly. They shivered and laughed at each other and almost never got dressed for wanting to stop and kiss. "Hurry up you damned kids. You'll miss the train and then Joe will be shot by Americans instead of Germans. That would be a goddam shame." There were four train loads of them leaving that morning and there was a terrible crowd at the station. The whole place the station and the cars and even the locomotives were draped with bunting and the children and women mostly carried flags little flags that they waved vaguely vacantly. There were three bands all seeming to play at once and lots of officers herding people around and songs and the mayor giving an address and people crying and losing each other and laughing and drunk. His mother and his sisters were there and Kareen was there and Mike was there muttering goddam fools and glaring at everybody and watching Kareen sharply. "And their lives if necessary that democracy may not perish from the face of the earth " It's a long way to Tiperrary it's a long way to go "Don't get scared Kareen. It's all right." "As that great patriot Patrick Henry said " Johnny get your gun get your gun get your gun "As that great patriot George Washington said " "Goodbye mother goodbye Catherine goodbye Elizabeth. I'll send back half my pay and dad's insurance will hold out till I get back." And we won't be back till it's over, over there "Step lively boy you're in the army now." Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile "As that great patriot Abraham Lincoln said." "Where's my boy where's my boy? He's under age can't you see? He just came up from Tucson bout a week ago. They had him in jail for a tramp and I came all the way here to get him back. They let him out of jail if he'd join the army. He's only sixteen except he's big and strong for his age he always was. He's too young I tell you he's just a baby. Where is he my little boy?" Goodbye maw goodbye paw goodbye mule with your old hee-haw "As that great patriot Theodore Roosevelt has said " America I love you you're like a sweetheart to me "Don't go Joe run away they'll kill you I know it I'll never see you again." Oh Kareen why do they have a war right now just when we find each other? Kareen we've got more important things than war. Us Kareen you and me in a house. I'll come home at night to you in my house your house our house. We'll have fat happy kids smart kids too. That's more important than a war. Oh Kareen, Kareen I look at you and you're only nineteen and you're old old like an old woman. Kareen I look at you and I cry inside and I bleed. Just a baby's prayer at twilight when lights are low. "As that great patriot Woodrow Wilson has said." There's a silver lining through the dark cloud shining "All aboard. All aboard." Over there over there over there over there over there "Goodbye son. Write us. We'll make out." "Goodbye mother goodbye Catherine goodbye Elizabeth don't cry." "For you are Los Angeles' own. May God bless you. May God give us victory." "All aboard. All aboard." The yanks are coming the yanks are coming "Let us pray. Our Father which art in Heaven" I can't pray. Kareen can't pray. Kareen, Kareen this is no time to pray. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" Kareen, Kareen I don't want to go. I want to stay here and be with you and work and make money and have kids and love you. But I've got to go. "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever Amen." "Goodbye Mike goodbye Kareen I love you Kareen." Oh say can you see "Goodbye mother goodbye Catherine goodbye Elizabeth." What so proudly we hailed. "You in my arms Kareen forever." Whose broad stripes and bright stars Goodbye everybody goodbye. Goodbye my son father brother lover husband goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye my mother father brother sister sweetheart wife goodbye and goodbye. O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. "Goodbye Joe." "Goodbye Kareen." "Joe dear darling Joe hold me closer. Drop your bag and put both of your arms around me and hold me tightly. Put both of your arms around me. Both of them." You in both of my arms Kareen goodbye. Both of my arms. Kareen in my arms. Both of them. Arms, arms, arms, arms. I'm fainting in and out all the time Kareen and I'm not catching on quick. You are in my arms Kareen. You in both of my arms. Both of my arms. Both of them. Both I haven't got any arms Kareen. My arms are gone. Both of my arms are gone Kareen both of them. They're gone. Kareen, Karee,n Kareen. They've cut my arms off both of my arms. Oh Jesus mother god Kareen they've cut off both of them. Oh Jesus mother god Kareen, Kareen, Kareen my arms. Chapter Four. It was hot. So hot that he seemed to be burning up inside and out. It was so hot he couldn't breathe. He could only gasp. Far off against the sky there was a foggy line of mountains and moving straight across the desert was the railroad track dancing and leaping in the heat. It seemed that he and Howie were working on the railroad. That was funny. Oh hell things were getting mixed up again. He'd seen all this before. It was like going into a new drug store for the first time and sitting down and suddenly feeling that you've been there many times before and that you've already heard what the clerk is going to say as soon as he comes up to serve you. He and Howie working on the railroad in the heat? Sure. Sure. It was all right. Things were under control. He and Howie were working there in the hot sun laying that railroad straight through the Uintah desert. And he was so hot he felt he was going to die. He felt that if he could only stop for a little rest he would cool off. But that was the awful thing about a section gang job. You couldn't ever stop. The fellows didn't laugh and kid as you'd think guys would either. They didn't say a word. They just worked. Looking at a section gang it always seems as if they are working slow. But you have to work slow because you never stop and you have just so much strength. You don't stop because you're afraid. It isn't that you're afraid of the foreman because the foreman never bothers anybody. It's just that you're afraid for the job and of how much the other guy will do. So he and Howie worked slow and steady trying to keep up with the Mexicans. His head throbbed and he could hear his heart pounding against his ribs and even down in the calves of his legs he could feel the strong pulse beat and yet he couldn't stop work even for a minute. His breath came shorter and shorter and it seemed that his lungs were too small to hold the air he had to get into them if he was going to keep alive. It was a hundred and twenty-five in the shade and there wasn't any shade and he felt like he was smothering under a white hot blanket and all he could think was I've got to stop I've got to stop I've got to stop. They stopped for lunch. It was their first day on the gang and he and Howie naturally thought they would be supplied with lunch from the hand car. But they weren't. When the foreman saw they had nothing to eat he said something to a couple of the Mexicans. The Mexicans came over and offered them something out of their lunch pails. The Mexicans were eating fried egg sandwiches all crusted over with red pepper. He and Howie just grunted no thanks and flopped on their backs. Then they turned over on their stomachs because the sun was so hot it would have burned out their eye balls even with the lids closed. The Mexicans just sat and chewed on their fried egg sandwiches and stared at them. All of a sudden there was the noise of the Mexicans getting up so he and Howie rolled over to see what was happening. The whole gang was starting down the tracks on a slow gallop. The foreman just sat and watched the gang. They asked the foreman what the idea was and the foreman said the boys were going to take a swim. The idea of a swim was too much. He and Howie jumped up and ran along after them. The way the foreman spoke they thought they were going just a little piece down the track. But it turned out they ran two miles before they came to a canal maybe ten feet wide and mud-colored and beached on both sides with a solid mass of tumbleweeds. The Mexicans started pulling their clothes off. He and Howie wondered how they figured to make it into the water without getting full of thistles. They decided there must be some path through the weeds or the Mexicans wouldn't have tackled the swim in the first place. By the time they were undressed the Mexicans were splashing around in the ditch and laughing and yelling. It turned out there wasn't any path through the tumble-weeds after all. They were ashamed to stand there so naked and white compared to the rest and do nothing about it. So they began jumping through the tumbleweeds until they were in the water. The water was hot and it smelled of alkali but that didn't make any difference. It was like an April shower. He thought about the Y.M.C.A. swimming pool in Shale City. He thought my gosh these guys act as if this was the greatest swimming hole in the world. He thought I'll bet they were never in a swimming pool in their lives. He was standing there with the mud of the ditch bottom up above his ankles when the Mexicans began climbing out and putting their clothes on again. The swim was over. By the time he and Howie got back to their clothes they were whiskered with thistles to the hips. They noticed that the Mexicans didn't even bother to pick the thistles out. Some of the Mexicans were already starting on the trip back to the hand car so they sort of brushed the thistles off their legs and leaped into their clothes. Then they ran the two miles back and lunch was over and it was time to go to work again. As the afternoon wore on he and Howie began to stumble at their work and finally to fall. The foreman didn't say anything when they fell down and neither did the Mexicans. The Mexicans just stopped and waited for them to get up staring like babies all the while. When they stumbled back to their feet they began tugging at the rails again. Every muscle in their bodies ached and still they had to keep on working. Most of the skin had worn off their hands. Every time they grabbed the hot rail-tongs and lifted they could taste the pain of raw hands clear into their mouths. The thistles in their feet and legs seemed to go deeper and deeper with every step they took and they festered and there was no time to stop and pick them out. But the aches and bruises and the awful weariness weren't the worst things. His body could keep up somehow but it was the things inside of him that began to strain and roar. His lungs got so dry that they squeaked with each breath. His heart swelled from pumping so hard. He got a little panic-s

Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html Source of Rahan Comics: Philippe Ropers. https://vk.com/topic-203785966_47424128 Rahan. Episode One hundred and One. By Roger Lecureux, drawn by Andre Cheret. The Death of Rahan! In this spring of fierce ages, astonishing news spread from caves to villages, from clans to clans, from territories to territories. Rahan is dead! Rahan has joined the territory of the shadows! This frightening news was spread by still dazed messengers who had themselves witnessed the death of the “Fire-Haired Hunter”! Rahan was killed in fair combat by our sorcerer Handdak! He rests now, and forever, on the "altar of the sun" It all started in the morning when the son of Crao heard the roars of "Goraks" covering the cries of men. Rahan hates "Goraks"! Maybe he can help these hunters! Page Two. A strange scene appeared to him. While a sickly hunter facing two “Saber-toothed Tigers” was in danger of dying. His companion cheered him as if he had triumphed over the wild beasts! You are the greatest sorcerer-hunter, Handdak! You killed the "Goraks"! This man does not see that his brother is going to have his throat slit! Or he is blind. Or he has lost his mind! Rahan was already rushing to the rescue of the hunter in peril. Surprised by this adversary who was falling from the sky, the big cat arched its back. Offering his side to the ivory knife. Ra-ha-ha! But surprise did not work against the second who, abandoning his victim, put up a front. Between the two of us, “Gorak”! Are you afraid of Rahan's "Claw"!? Page Three. Rahan, who had been taken in and raised by Crao, the chief of the Blue Mountain clan, had never known his true parents. But he knew that they had been mauled by "Goraks" when he was just a "little man". So he hated saber-toothed tigers, savage and bloodthirsty! It was with vengeful ardor that he accepted the melee. He was furious and his outcome was momentarily uncertain. But the victorious clamor of man finally overcame the death rattle of the monster. Ra-ha-ha! You saved Handdaak, “Hair of Fire!” “Those-who-walk-upright” must help each other! Rahan only did what he had to do! Page Four. The hunter who remained on the sidelines came running, screaming with enthusiasm. I saw it all, Handdak! You killed these "Goraks" with magnificent courage! You are the greatest wizard of all! Hum! Do not listen to Hadko, brother. He is the leader of our clan. But he sometimes loses his mind! How could I have saved myself? Rahan has had a long, long run. He would like to rest for a while among yours! Follow us Brother! A moment later Hadko-the-chief and Handdak-the-sorcerer led the son of Crao to their village. There was a strange and unusual atmosphere there. Men and women remained prostrate in the shadows of the huts, staring, indifferent to the arrival of the newcomer. What mysterious illness could have struck this clan? In front of these apathetic hunters, Hadko recounted in his own way the fight with the two "Goraks." Then I saw Handdak lunge at the monsters and hit them with his magic spear until they died! Page Five. Whether his feat was attributed to someone else did not matter to the son of Crao. This unfortunate Hadko is not in his right mind! The true leader of this clan must be Handdak! Yours look like they have not eaten for days and days, Handdak! It is true. Game is rare in this area! But when my brothers have had a little of this drink, they will forget their hunger! They will forget their suffering! They will forget everything! The sorcerer carefully prepared a curious mixture. A drug, hah!? It is not with a drug that you will give back to your hunters their courage and their strength! Rahan now understood the clan's apathy. He was indignant. The oblivion that your drug gives to yours only brings them an illusion of happiness! Look at them! They are nothing more than human waste, incapable of thinking and acting! Handdak had turned pale. You saved me, Rahan, but that does not give you the right to challenge my authority! Leave Rahan! Leave our village immediately! Page Six. Rahan is not a slave to your drugs Handdak! His mind remains clear and he is the master of his decisions! Rahan will leave when he judges fit! The attack had attracted Hadko and a few dazed men. All those who oppose the great Handdak deserve death! You are going to join the “Territory of Shadows”, “Fire Hair”! Hadko did not even have time to throw his spear. You were undoubtedly a strong hunter, Hadko. But see what Handdak's brews have done to you! You have no more strength than one of these “Little Men”! A simple push had thrown the leader to the ground! A hostile murmur arose. You would want to pounce on Rahan. But you are scared, are you not!? You are nothing more than ghosts of hunters! Who do you think you are, fire hair!? Do you know that I could impose my will on you without even using violence! Ha-ha-ha! If it is a challenge, Rahan accepts it! Page Seven. A little later, the son of Crao lent himself to a strange experience. Sleep, fiery hair, sleep. Sleep and let Handdak's thoughts penetrate yours! The sorcerer's gaze was almost unbearable and Rahan slowly felt overcome by an inexplicable uneasiness. Sleep! I want it! But he fought against the numbness that took all his willpower away. To resist the effects of hypnosis. Rahan will not let Handdak impose his will on him! He must continue to resist! A clamor mixing astonishment and admiration resounded. The sorcerer came to admit defeat. You are the first man to resist my will, Rahan! But perhaps you are not an ordinary man! Maybe you are a god. Or a demon! Neither god nor demon, Handdak! Rahan is only a hunter, like his father Crao! You should leave this village immediately, Rahan! The wizard had difficulty concealing his rage. While Rahan harangued the clan. Looking for oblivion and so-called “Happiness” in the drugs of Handdak is cowardice! A coward in the face of life! A coward in front of your children who you let die of hunger! Page Eight. Yes, Rahan will leave your territory! But he will not do it without having done something for these "Little Men" who are not responsible for your losses! A little later. Hum. Rahan will have to find meat elsewhere! Wild beasts had preceded the son of Crao. All that remained of the two "Goraks" were the carcasses. Suddenly. Rahan knew the risks he was taking in confronting this great black buffalo. Oh! Rahan would have preferred less formidable game. But he has no choice! The ivory knife had penetrated the beast's spine but had been torn from his fingers. It was only with the second charge that he managed, thanks to his prodigious agility, to recover his weapon! Ten times the great buffalo charged him. Ten times he dodged and delivered his blows. On the chest. From the neck to the sides. Page Nine. When the beast finally collapsed his cry of victory reached the clan. Ra-ha-ha! There was a short silence when he appeared, carrying a heavy wedge of meat. Then the men, emerging from their apathy, rushed forward, screaming with joy. Meat! Black buffalo meat! Back! This meat is intended for the “Little men.” If you want to eat you will have to find the energy to go find the buffalo that Rahan killed! The sorcerer's rage grew further when Hadko and a few hunters moved away towards the forest. Uh. Uh. I believe that "Hair of Fire" is right. Follow me, brothers! One of us is too many, “Hair of Fire”! That is right, Handdak! This is why Rahan will leave the territory immediately! You misunderstood me, Rahan! If you left, mine would keep the memory of a man who resisted their sorcerer! What I want is for them to see you die, killed with my own hands! Page Ten. We will fight at dawn, on the tomb that our ancestors dedicated to the sun god! It will be an honest and fair fight, until death ensues. The men who return loaded with meat cheered at the idea of this duel. Handdak is a great wizard and Rahan is a great hunter! It was going to be an extraordinary fight! But Rahan does not want to kill Handdak! Rahan does not kill "Those-who-walk-upright"! The son of Crao felt that he was going to lose all the respect he had just acquired. Rahan could accept this duel, after all! It will be easy for him to triumph over Handdak and grant him life! Thus, Rahan will be better listened to, better understood by the clan! Rahan accepts the combat with Handdak! The clamors increased, greeting both Rahan and the sorcerer. Your courage honors him, Rahan! The fight will take place at dawn. We will each arm ourselves with five arrows and a spear! One of us will have to die on the dolmen of the sun! Page Eleven. The night took place in a festive atmosphere. The sorcerer generously distributed his beverages. You may be living the last night, Rahan! Why refuse to make it more pleasant? For some false happiness, drugs destroy reflexes for days and days! And Rahan needs all his reflexes to fight you Handdak! When the tomb of the sun was silhouetted in the first light of dawn, the whole clan moved towards the hill. And formed a circle around the large sacred stone on which the two fighters stood. You are going to see Handdak kill the fiery-haired hunter, brothers! When the sun god appears, Rahan will have reached the territory of shadows! This assurance from the sorcerer made the son of Crao smile. Who knew he was agile enough, skillful enough to quickly triumph over his adversary. When Rahan has ridiculed Handdak and has him at his mercy. He will give him his life with grace! Page Twelve. Under the eyes of all the members of the clan plunged into blissful ecstasy, the duel began. With surprising agility Rahan avoided Handdak's first arrows. And shot his with remarkable precision, just grazing the sorcerer. As you can see, Rahan could have already killed four times! But an arrow suddenly grazed his shoulder. The flint had only lightly scratched his skin. But he instantly felt dizzy. His legs gave way beneath him. Another one of your drugs! You, however, had sworn. That the fight would be fair you, you. As if in a fog he saw Handdak brandishing his bow. His muscles refused to obey him. Watch Rahan die, brothers! The clan, stunned, saw the arrow fly away. They saw the “Fire Haired” hunter stagger, his side pierced right through! Page thirteen. Rahan should never have challenged your sorcerer, brothers! The belly pierced by the last arrow of Handdak, the son of Crao, collapsed on the sacred stone. Then, Handdak-the-sorcerer grabbed his spear and plunged it three times into Rahan's heart! For the members of the clan everything turned red. The sky, set ablaze by the rising sun. The sacred stone, which the lifeless fire-haired hunter flooded with his blood! Rahan is no more! Rahan has joined the “Territory of the shadows”! But he deserves our respect. Solemn and respectful Handdak had placed the ivory knife under the crossed hands of the dead man. Come on, my brothers! Go everywhere and spread this news! Go tell how Handak defeated Rahan! The sun was now blazing above the sacred tomb. A sun that the son of Crao would never see again, lying forever on this tragic altar. Page Fourteen. And that is why, in this spring of fierce times, the astonishing news spread. Rahan is dead! Rahan is dead! It crossed the forests and the rivers, the steppes and the hills, reaching the most distant territories. Rahan is dead! Rahan is dead! All the clans and hordes that the son of Crao had known, and they were innumerable, evoked his memory. We thought Rahan was immortal, like all the gods! But Rahan was just a simple hunter, just a man as he himself said. Everywhere, in this spring of mourning, evoked the courage, the generosity, the kindness of Rahan, all the qualities symbolized by the claws of his famous necklace. They remembered his wild childhood and his struggle for life. They talked again about his fights and his sacrifices for the clans he met. Page Fifteen. They remembered all his tricks, all his wonderful discoveries. Our clans owe him so much! We will never be able to forget him! The one whose pride was in never having stolen a man's life was no more. The one who had done so much for “Those-who-walk-upright,” his brothers, was no more! The men in these fierce times had lost one of their best sons. But they would never lose the memory of him. Rahan will continue to live in our hearts! At the dawn of human history, faced with the darkness of ignorance, a man dared to brandish the torch of reason. This man was no more. Rahan, the son of Crao, was no more. Rahan the hunter of the “Hair of fire” was no more. But he had opened the way for those of his kind. Men. The son of wild ages had ceased to live. But his legend had been born which would perpetuate him until the end of time.

Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html Source of Rahan Comics: Philippe Ropers. https://vk.com/topic-203785966_47424128 Rahan. Episode One Hundred. The son of the Ferocious Ages. By Roger Lecureux, drawn by Andre Cheret. Colors by Elodie Ant and Reed Man. The Happy Valley. In this forest where game seemed very rare, the son of Crao had finally managed to kill a boar. His joy was so great that his usual vigilance was relaxed. The clan will celebrate Ka-Hor when they harvest this meat! Perhaps the hunters will decide that Ka-Hor becomes leader in place of Ka-Noa! When Rahan came to, his game had disappeared. But the thief's tracks were easy to follow. Rahan will find the one who violated the law of hunting! He Quickly discovered a clan. They were cheering a hunter who had triumphantly cut down a Marcassin. And do not forget that Ka-Noa has not hunted anything for days brothers! If you eat today it is thanks to me, Ka-Hor! Page Two. These shares go to Ka-Dir the sorcerer and Ka-Hor, who brought back the meat! Looking at the chief with a smirk, Ka-Hor granted himself a huge piece. But he did not have time to put it in his mouth. Oh! That share should go to Rahan. Since it was he who killed the Marcassin! A hostile murmur greeted the sudden appearance of the son of Crao. Only Ka-Noa the leader stood firm. He lies! And you saw he just tried to kill me! It was merely a warning. Narrowly avoiding the ivory knife. Rahan leapt towards Ka-Hor. Look at the boar skin brothers! It was Rahan's knife that made this cut! The cut could only have been made by the polished and sharpened ivory blade. Faced with this proof, Ka-Hor was troubled. Uh, Uh, Yes. “Fire hair” killed the boar, but it was on our territory! And the wild boar is ours! Page Three. No, Ka-Hor! The wild boar belongs to the one who kills it! “Hair of Fire” Can take it back! Rahan will share his game. But more fairly than does Ka-Hor! While the son of Crao cut the pieces. You should have broken that hunter's skull when you surprised him, Ka-Hor! If he earns the respect of the clan, you will never become Chief! A little later. Rahan must forgive Ka-Hor! Game is so rare. Mine are so hungry. Rahan knows, three days' walk from here, a valley where game is abundent! He will lead the clan there! Ka-Dir the sorcerer roared! Do not listen to him! He wants to drag you into enemy territory! Why do you see the enemy everywhere, Ka-Dir!? If Rahan knows a valley where the clan would live more happily, we must follow him! Protests erupted. No Ka-Hoa! No! We do not believe “Hair of Fire"! Since Ka-Dir's words have sowed doubt in you, you will stay here! Ka-Noa will go alone with Rahan in search of game territory! When he finds the valley, he will come back for the clan! The leader spoke with gravity and sadness. Page Four. And Rahan understood that the authority of this just and brave man was contested by the sorcerer. And who will command the clan in your absence? Is Ka-Hor not waiting for this opportunity? Ka-Noa and the son of Crao immediately prepared their expedition. Rahan is happy that you trust him! Ka-Noa still trusts "Those-who-walk-upright"! This is what some people criticize him for! However. The clan will now obey us, Ka-Dir! I will never dispute your prophecies like Ka-Noa did! And you, in return, will always support Ka-Hor, the new leader! You forget that Ka-Noa will come back! If he discovers a country that is really full of food, he will regain all his authority and prestige within the clan! But then? What to do? Ka-Noa must never return and neither should Rahan! Ka-Hor the proud and Ka-Dir the perfidious consulted discreetly. And. A little after. Ka-Dir has just consulted the spirits. They say danger awaits our leader. And ask that a righteous and strong hunter accompany him into unknown territory! Who will answer the call of the spirits? Page Five. Me! I have often opposed Ka-Noa but when danger threatens him, my duty is to be at his side. No one noticed the knowing glance exchanged between Ka-Hor and the sorcerer. Shortly after, the three men plunged into the thick forest. The son of Crao sometimes notched a trunk. The sun will rise six times before you find your people! What does it matter if I bring them happy news! You will not be the one to report this news, Ka-Noa! It will be me! Ka-Hor had modified his sinister project. Ka-Dir's idea of killing them as quickly as possible is stupid! I will kill them later, when I know where the game-filled valley is! And it will be me who will lead the clan to the valley! Me, Ka-Hor, the new leader! The deceiver was effective in perfectly hiding his plan. They went like this all day, without encountering the slightest beast. Only nature stood before them as an obstacle. Are you sure you will find this valley, Rahan? Yes, beyond the marshes we will find a river that we will go up to the source. The valley will be close! Page Six. The night was strangely calm. The valley is close. If Rahan had been more precise, I could have finished them right away! The crossing of the marshes lasted all of the next day. It was a very difficult stage. Arh! Thankyou Ka-Hor, thankyou! If you could only guess how much I want to let go of you! And night came again. Far from there the clan listened to the terrible prophecies of Ka-Dir the sorcerer. I see in the clouds death taking the form of a horrible monster. This monster has just attacked Ka-Noa, Ka-Hor, and the man with the "Fire Hair"! The fight is terrible. Unfortunately, the leader and “Hair of fire” are snatched up by the monster! Ka-Hor stays alone. With incredible audacity he strikes, strikes with his spear. The monster recoils. He is running away! Ka-Noa has joined the territory of shadows, my brothers! But Ka-Hor the valiant is coming back to us! Our new chief is back! Page Seven. The truth was very different. On the morning of the third day, in fact, Rahan and his companions arrived in sight of the mountain. They were quenching their thirst in the river when. Oh! Ka-Noa has never seen such a beast! She looks like “Two-tooth”! The animal that charged them did not have the large curved tusks of the mammoth. His were straight and pointed toward the ground. It was an anancus, ancestor of the elephant. The spears dug into the pachyderm's leather, without result. The eye of the Long Nose is the only vulnerable point! The son of Crao was already putting an arrow on his bow. But. He did not have time to release it! The long tusks threw him into the air. And. He fell violently back to the ground. Stunned by the shock, he glimpsed the monstrous paw that was going to crush him. Page Eight. And he suddenly felt himself being pulled by his feet! At the risk of his life, Ka-Hor had just saved his! At the same time Ka-Noa's precise arrows blinded the "Long Nose." Who immediately disappeared, trumpeting terrible sounds. Ka-Hor is a brave man! Um, Ka-Hor especially wants you to live. Just a little more! Ka-Hor would have let the "Long Nose" crush your skull. If only he could find the valley alone! The three men finally arrived at the bottom of a roaring waterfall. We will never be able to climb this cliff! Climbing is useless, Ka-Noa! Follow Rahan! A little later. Oh! Rahan discovered this passage by chance. The river must have dug it once! The waterfall concealed the entrance to an underground passage. At the other end there is “Game Valley”! The valley where, for the clan, life will be good! The darkness gave way to twilight, and half-day. Page Nine. And it was marvelous. And Ka-Dir said you wanted to drag us into enemy territory! Ka-Dir lies when he says he speaks in the name of the spirits! The clan will no longer experience famine! Even our sons' sons will remember you who introduced us to the "Valley of Happiness," Rahan! Deep and wide, the green valley extended to the horizon. The gazelles and antelopes who grazed there were innumerable. Throw down your bows! Throw down your knife too, “Hair of fire!” Otherwise! Ka-Hor aimed at the heart of Ka-Noa. I have been waiting for this day for many moons, Ka-Noa! You and "Hair of Fire" are going to die! It is me, the new leader, who will lead the clan to the "Happy Valley"! Your death will not surprise the clan. Ha-ha-ha! Ka-Dir has already “Seen it in the clouds”! Your arrow will perhaps kill one of us. But the other will not give you time to fire a second one! Page Ten. It is precisely to give myself time so that I can get away from you! And since you think you are so cunning, you die first. “Fire hair.” As it turned out, the son of Crao had no chance of avoiding the stroke of Ka-Hor, who carefully adjusted with skill. But he had a surprising reflex. Ra-ha-ha! Torn from the quiver, the arrow went whistling. Argh! Pulling out the arrow from his shoulder, Ka-Hor suddenly withdrew into the underground. I will kill them! I will kill them! Rahan held back Ka-Noa who was about to charge. Prudence Brother! His injury is slight and he still has our weapons! He will probably lie in wait at the exit of the underground! Page Eleven. Indeed. They will have to come out, sooner or later! “Fire Hair” will not surprise me a second time. Rahan and Ka-Noa slipped cautiously into the darkness. The roar of the waterfall drowned their voices. And the son of fierce ages shouted hard in the ear of his companion. If Rahan manages to avoid Ka-Hor's first arrow, he will master him! No, Rahan! This cheat is a skilled archer! It is up to me to take the risk of chasing him. Ka-Noa tried to hold him back. The son of Crao struck. Argh! Rahan regrets, Ka-Noa! But the clan will need a loyal and courageous leader like you! A moment later he emerged from the underground. He immediately caught a glimpse, silhouetted against the liquid wall of the waterfall, of the outline of Ka-Hor drawing her bow. Page Twelve. Ra-ha-ha! Zizz! Grasping and firing a second arrow would take Ka-Hor only a few seconds. Rahan did not grant them to him! Argh! And Ka-Noa, having come to his senses, saw the two men rolling on the edge of the void. Ka-Hor brandished the ivory knife. “Hair of Fire” is lost! Oh! Rahan's legs suddenly tensed, His clamor and Ka-Hor's cry of terror merged into the crash of the waterfall. Ra-ha-ha! Argh! My Knife! The ivory weapon remained attached to Ka-Hor's wrist. Who disappeared under the swirls of foam! “Hair of Fire” has lost his mind! The son of Crao had just plunged into the whirlpool! He in turn disappeared under the wall of water. Page Thirteen. The two men were thrown against each other, dragged towards the bottom, and carried away by a strong eddy. Which brought them back to the surface, not far from the waterfall. Ka-Hor was suffocating and clutched desperately. So you do not know how to crawl on water? Rahan will not abandon you! But it is up to the clan to decide your fate! Whirlpools and swirls lost their violence. Rahan could return to the shore. Why did you dive in to save this felon!? Eh? Rahan especially wanted to retrieve his knife. Rahan would perhaps have killed this cheat in combat. But he could not coldly hand him over to death! Our clan will not share your generosity, "Fire hair"! Let me run away, Ka-Noa! The clan will never hear from me again! Besides, it was the sorcerer who wanted to see you disappear! Get up and on the way, coward! They set off on their way back. They had lost their spears and bows but that no longer mattered since they would find the territory without fauna. Page Fourteen. Two days later the village was in sight. Look Ka-Hor! Your accomplice still consults the “Spirits”! Facing the gathered clan, Ka-Dir the sorcerer observed the course of the clouds. Only Ka-Dir's gaze can pierce the darkness of the "Territory of Shadows"! The “Territory-of-Shadows.” Ka-Dir sees the torn corpses of Ka-Noa and “Fire-Hair” floating there! As ironic murmurs rose and the clan looked at something behind him. The wizard turned his head. And astonishment froze him. What? What? You lied to us, Ka-Dir! Why did you say that Ka-Noa and "Hair of Fire" were dead? I will tell you, brothers! He "Knew" that Ka-Hor had to kill us! Ka-Noa recounted in detail the expedition to the “Valley of game.” And if the project of these two criminals had succeeded, they would have imposed their law on the clan! Page Fifteen. No! No! Ka-Hor wanted to become a chief! It was he who had this sinister idea! That is wrong! It was him! Spears were raised! Death to these tricksters! What is the point! Loneliness will be a harsher punishment for these vain people! Banish them from the clan! Ka-Noa agreed. The felons were chased away. If they did not kill each other, they would now live like fools, with no one to dominate or deceive but themselves! Thanks to you, happy days await us! Will you come with us to the wonderful valley? Destiny calls Rahan elsewhere, Ka-Noa! For once, Rahan was happy with his knife. He would not have liked crossing the same territory. For a fourth time! Take this meat brother. We will soon find more than we need. It was without regret that the clan, the next day, abandoned the village. The son of Crao waited for the song of the hunters on their way to the "Happy Valley" to die down, before setting off himself to discover new horizons.

Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html Source of Rahan Comics: Philippe Ropers. https://vk.com/topic-203785966_47424128 Rahan. The son of the ferocious ages. Episode Ninety-Eight. By Roger Lecureux, drawn by Andre Cheret. The Eye of Granite. The "Dayakas" will never find Rahan again! Oh! Thanks to this source which would erase his tracks, the son of Crao could hope to evade the headhunters who had been tracking him since the day before. The forest suddenly gave way to the most curious of peninsulas. This high cliff, inaccessible from the sea, was hollowed out by a gigantic crater, a granite eye staring at the sky. Following the spring that flowed towards this crater. Page Two. Rahan discovered there, with amazement, a sort of lagoon. Men were lounging under the coconut trees, others were frolicking in the clear water. How do they live at the bottom of the eye, since it is impossible to go down or get out!? The son of Crao was mistaken, believing he had outwitted the cruel "Dayakas". They had discovered his ruse. Harkar was right to think that "Fire-Hair" would follow this water trail! Here he is! The cries of death that Rahan had heard all day and all night rang out again. Rahan cannot escape them anymore! In fact, he still had a chance to escape the howling pack. The ocean! Kill! Kill! The "Fire Hair" will be Harkar's most beautiful trophy! Rah-ha-ha! Any other person would shrink from such a perilous plunge. Rahan did not hesitate. Page Three. His dive was so perfect that he was already rising when the spears and arrows broke the surface. A new hail of arrows fell, crackling around him. No refuge! Rahan has only gained a small slice of life! Climbing the cliff was impossible and he could not, without a boat and without provisions, face the immensity of the "Great River." He had to sink ten times to avoid the arrows of the "Dayakas." And suddenly. Oh! This cave may lead to an air pocket. A recent adventure had made him discover a similar phenomenon. To die for the sake of dying, Rahan must try everything! Page Four. Not seeing him reappear, the "Dayaks" thought they had struck him. They had just discovered the strange lagoon in their turn. Their astonishment was as unmistakable. As that of Rahan who, coming out of the underwater cavern, found the light of day again. A few seconds later he noticed that he was in the lagoon, inside the granite eye itself! The coconut trees resounded with cries of fear as the "Dayakas" shot their arrows at the men. Argh! Argh! The "Dayakas" are more cruel than wild beasts! They kill for the pleasure of killing! They will not be able to descend into the “Eye." But if they see Rahan, they will understand that there is a passage to enter it! Page Five. The bottom was covered with corals. Marvelous fish fled before Rahan who only returned to the surface when he was out of breath. Without being noticed by the Dayakas he joined the men lying in wait under the coconut trees. Go away! Go away! Your people stole Tanoa's life! With that thing! The son of Crao noticed that these men were not carrying any weapons. And that they had never seen an arrow! Life has not yet left Tanoa brothers! Everyone backed away in fear when he stabbed the flint point with the tip of his knife to extract the arrow. Tanoa will live! His heart was not touched! Rahan promises you that your brother will not join the "Territory of Shadows." Page Six. From the top of the steep cliff, the "Dayakas" shot other arrows. Stay under the trees, brothers! These man-hunters are merciless! The greatest joy of these savages is to adorn their huts with the heads of those who venture into their territory! They have been tracking Rahan for two days! Now that they have discovered your clan, their fury is turned against you! The "Dayaks" Must not see Rahan, because they would know that an underwater cave allows access to this lagoon. They would discover it. And it would be massacre! The son of Crao had realized that "Those-of-the-Lagoon" knew nothing about weapons. How could these gentle and peaceful men resist the fearsome headhunters!? Page Seven. The arrows had ceased raining down but when night fell, the "Dayakas" were still prowling the cliff. These savages kill for fun! They are capable, if necessary, of remaining on the lookout for days and days! No man has ever been able to enter the "Granite Eye"! Except you, who discovered the cave-underwater by chance! Surrounded by its fantastic granite rampart, the lagoon was indeed inaccessible. But how did "Those of the lagoon" get there? How did they live there? An old man answered Rahan's questions. I was still very young, when a hurricane devastated, destroyed our village. The survivors were carried away by the waves. Clinging to uprooted trees, they sailed on the great river in anger for as many days as the hand has fingers. Many disappeared. Page Eight. The happiest ones found themselves one morning, prisoners of an immense rocky circle. And the "Great River" calmed down, and withdrew. And the lagoon took on the appearance that you see. Except for these "Wood Fruit" trees that have grown since. Because all this happened when I was only ten years old! The "Underwater Cave", which we discovered shortly after, did not allow us to escape the trap since on the other side of the cliff, there is the "Endless River"! But just when we thought we would be decimated by hunger and thirst or overwhelmed by the next wrath of the "Great River." A wonderful life awaited us. Never again will the "Great River" get angry as before. Even when it becomes stormy, we are safe here! Sheltered from the wind and the waves, sheltered from the cold and the wild animals! Page Nine. We live on the fish that abound in the lagoon and the birds that often knock themselves against the cliff. And thanks to the spring that flows in all seasons, we can ignore thirst! Our clan knows happiness! Remorse settled in Rahan's heart. Had he not just, unintentionally, broken this happiness? Rahan should not have attracted the "Dayakas" to this side! But he will not allow peaceful men to die because of him! He will repel the Dayakas. These wild men will never be able to come down to us. They will probably get tired of it! These savages never give up, brother! They will find a way! Day returned without the besiegers showing up. What were they planning? If only Rahan could get up there! But that is impossible! Page Ten. The tallest coconut tree only reached halfway up the steep cliff. The idea that the initiative could only come from the “Dayakas” irritated Rahan. Who had managed to make a bow. Perhaps the head-hunters' arrows would be useful to him. Oh, there they are! The "Dayakas" suddenly reappeared, throwing two long vines into the void. The son of Crao understood. Stay under the trees! Do not break cover! Under the protection of their own, some "Dayakas" began to descend along the cliff! Rahan could easily kill these savages, but others will follow them! Rahan has better things to do! The arrow flew away with a long whistle. Page Eleven. The first vine, cut in half, gave way under the weight of the men. Who crashed at the foot of the cliff. The Lagoon Clan has nothing more to fear from them! But will Rahan be as skillful with others? The son of Crao had to shoot several arrows to cut the second vine. The two Dayakas had had time to descend. And their fall was less brutal than that of their peers. While anxiety froze "Those of the lagoon", they rose again, fierce and cruel. On the cliff, Harkar-the chief screamed with rage. It will take us a whole day to prepare new vines! But what does it matter! Since two of ours are down there! Page Twelve. And two "Dayakas" will be enough to subdue this clan! But. What? What? Stupor suffocated Harkar. The man with the "Fire Hair", whom he thought was dead, had just sprung out from under the trees. Rahan hates stealing the life of "Those-Who-Walk-Upright"! But if you force him to do it he will! More accustomed to a fleeing adversary than to seeing themselves charged, the "Dayakas." Had a hesitation which benefited Rahan! Ra-ha-ha! As he led them back to the trees, arrows shot around him. And suddenly. The son of Crao, under a barrage of arrows, was about to reach the trees when the second "Dayakas" was struck in turn. Page thirteen. Here is proof of the cruelty of these beings! Their desire to kill Rahan is such that they did not even care about the lives of their own! Harkar the chief, on the failure, could not control his fury. “Fire Hair” has challenged us once again! It is Harkar himself who will cut off his head! It will take us a long time to find other vines as long and as strong! "Fire Hair" managed to reach the lagoon without a vine. So there is a passage under the cliff! If he could discover it, we will discover it too! Night returned. The head-hunters had retreated into the forest. Do you think they will come back, Rahan? Yes! But we will not be here anymore! Page Fourteen. Crao's son smiled. The Dayakas had offered him what he would not have dared to hope for. The two long vines! When he had collected them, he made a long lasso of them. We will have to find the strength to get up there, brothers! It is our only chance to survive! Shortly after, climbing into the highest tree, he tried to grab a hold on the cliff. He could only count on chance. How many times did he throw and bring back the lasso? A hundred times? Maybe more! The loop finally encircled a support. He tested its solidity and joined those in the lagoon. Go ahead, brothers! You can only go up two by two. It will be long and exhausting. But you will succeed! You must! Page Fifteen. At first light, Harkar and two of his men set out in search of new vines. While their peers dove into the "Great River". Skilled swimmers, they quickly discovered the underwater cave. A moment later they emerged into the lagoon, like Rahan had two days before. Death to “Hair of fire”! Death to those of the lagoon! Oh! Fire-Hair is escaping us! The beach was absolutely deserted! As nimble as a “four-hands”, Rahan pulled himself up the cliff. And rejoined all the "Those of the lagoon" who had preceded him on the platform of the "Eye-of-granite"! Quick, brothers! Help Rahan to get back to Tanoa! Page Sixteen. The headhunters threw their spears in vain. Tanoa, hanging from the vine, was already out of reach! Ah! If Harkar does not throw us another vine. We are lost! The situation had been reversed. It was the "Dayakas" who, in their turn, were prisoners of the eye of granite! Attention! Harkar and his men rushed forward, their spears raised. "Those of the Lagoon" dispersed at once. But the son of Crao knew how to break the attack! Ra-ha-ha! And while he was preparing to confront the leader of the headhunters, his companions pulled themselves together and rushed towards the others. Page Seventeen. Thrown into the "Great River" they would perhaps find the "Underwater Cave," but would become prisoners of the lagoon! Just barely escaping the spear of Harkar the savage, Rahan also came tumbling into. The void! An instinctive reaction made him grab the loop of vine that was still hanging on the side of the cliff. Rahan is lost! The vine is not held to anything! And it was a miracle! The vine tightened so abruptly that he almost let go. He hadn't thought of Tanoa who, desperately clinging to the ground to avoid being dragged into the void, saved him at the same time! But! Page Eighteen. A howl rang out and Harkar the savage, brushing past him, crashed onto the beach fifty meters away. This monster was going to cut the vine! We could not. Do not regret anything, brothers. Harkar was worth less than a wild animal! The formidable headhunters were now condemned to live in the "Eye of Granite" until their natural extinction! They will be able to feed themselves and they will be protected from the waves. But they will no longer be able to satisfy their evil instincts! They will never again bring terror to this territory! The outcome of this adventure shocked the son of Crao. “Those of the lost lagoon” could have regretted this territory where life was so easy. It did not happen. The youngest, who had grown up under a horizon of granite, marveled at the landscapes so often described by their elders. And everyone finally felt liberated. Free, as already, in these fierce times, "Those-who-walk-upright" loved to be! This is why they followed in the footsteps of the son of Crao without regret.

Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html Source of Rahan Comics: Philippe Ropers. https://vk.com/topic-203785966_47424128 Rahan. Episode Ninety-Nine. By Roger Lecureux, drawn by Andre Cheret. The Madness of Ivory. The exhausted hunter no longer had the strength to resist the vultures who competed with him for the meat of a “Two-tooth.” Courage brothers! The “Featherless necks" will not tear you apart! Seizing the man's spear, Rahan attempted to disperse the cloud. Ra-ha-ha! But he was in turn harassed and pecked. There are too many "Featherless Necks", brother! Let us abandon this meat! Page Two. While protecting himself from the Raptors, Rahan dragged the hunter towards a crevice. What is the point? Tawa is going to die! Tawa will join “The Territory of Shadows” without having brought meat back to his family. Tawa is weak because he is hungry, but he will not die. Rahan will bring him back to his clan. But why did Tawa attack a “Two-tooth”? It was not Tawa who killed "Two-tooth" but those of the ivory clan! Those of the ivory clan kill all the "Two-tooths" to take their "Teeth". They massacre only for the ivory. And leave behind the meat that my people miss so much. Only the “Featherless Necks” benefit from this carnage. Page Three. The birds of prey had disappeared, leaving only thin shreds of flesh on the carcass. Tawa will never be able to drag himself up the big hill. Rahan will take you there! The son of Crao, with his customary skill, had already made a solid Travoi. A little later. You saved Tawa and scraped the bones of the "Two-tooth" to bring meat back to mine. Why so much generosity? Who are you then? I am Rahan, son of Crao. Rahan has no clan, no horde, but his heart beats for all "Those-who-walk-upright"! They reached a bamboo forest when the first drops pattered on the foliage. The spirits are against you, "Firehair." Page Four. Because the “Tears of Heaven” will make our meat rot even more! Do not worry, Tawa, Rahan knows how to protect meat. A large cut bamboo served as a “Cache”. The travoi covered it. And There you go! The sky can cry all night. So your clan is suffering from hunger because “Those of the Ivory” are needlessly decimating the “Two Teeth”! And so it will be as long as Ghowk-the-fool is alive. Ghowk only desires ivory, only thinks of ivory, only dreams of ivory! The rain stopped suddenly but large drops still fell from the valleys. And suddenly. Listen. The drops fell on the Travoi's taut skin and the bamboo resonated curiously. Tom, Tom, Tom. It is our “Meat Cache” that sings! Page Five. Amused, the son of Crao tapped the can and the sounds became louder, fuller. Listen. Listen. And according to the vigor of his taps the sounds varied, modulated. We have discovered how to make bamboo sing! Tam, tom, tam! Rahan's joy was brief. Look! The fiery-haired sorcerer has captured Tawa! He wants to kill him with his magic noises! No! Do not strike! Rahan did not capture Tawa. On the contrary, he saved him from the “Featherless Necks”! And brought him back to the big hill with the meat that is in this “Singing Bamboo”! Rahan is our brother! And the meat is yours! Page Six. A moment later the hunters shared the tiny shreds of flesh equally between them. Despite their hunger, mine know how to stay fair! Rahan likes that “Those-who-walk-upright” do not behave like wild animals! He will be the friend of your clan, Tawa! The village of Tawa was close. There, the son of Crao encountered the sad spectacle of famine. Every day we lose one of our own. Those who went to ask “Ghowk the fool” to stop the massacre of the “Two-Tooths” never came back! Why do you not hunt other game? The beasts of our forests are cunning. We set traps for them, but they always avoid them! Page Seven. We must not wait for them to fall into traps! You have to attract them or push them there! You could do this by surrounding the game and scaring it with your screams and noises. With noises. Oh! The “bamboo-that-sings"! The tom-tom! The son of Crao would, once again, take advantage from a discovery due to chance circumstances. And he set to work making many experiments. Thinner and drier skin “Sing” better. Tom-tom, tam-tom. And smaller bamboos will be lighter for hunters! Hear that, brothers! Tom-tam! With the "Tom Tom," you can alert yours to danger, find yourself in the forest, track game and push it towards traps! Page Eight. May the good spirits be thanked for having introduced you to Tawa, “Fire Hair”! Tom-tam, tom-tam. Where does the “Ivory Clan” live? Rahan would like to meet Ghowk the fool! Do not do this. I already told you that those who braved Ghowk never came back! No one could make the son of Crao reconsider his decision. That was why the next day he climbed the big hill. When the bushes were too dense he took the path of the "four hands". The sun was still at its zenith when he dominated a large valley. Oh! How many “Two-tooths” were massacred to build this ivory passage. Page Nine. At the bottom of the valley stretched to the opposite slope a fantastic tunnel made of mammoth tusks! Shortly after, with his heart thumping, the son of Crao went under this arch where the sun strangely played. The flesh of all these "Two-tooths" could have fed ten clans for the lifetime of a hunter. Rahan walked for a long time before finally seeing, at the end of this tunnel, the entrance to a cave. Rahan arrives without doubt at the lair of Ghowk-the-fool! What demon are you to dare to take the “Sacred Path?” Page Ten. The moment of astonishment passed, these men dashed forward. Their ivory javelins whistled. You do not know that Rahan is more agile than a "Two-tooth"! Assailed by the pack, Rahan would have had the right to kill. But he used the javelins in another way! Ra-ha-ha! However, the fight was too unequal and he was defeated. A sharp point rested on his throat when. Stop! Ghowk orders you to free this hunter! His limbs weighed down with ivory ornaments, his eyes feverish, Ghowk the fool had just intervened! Page Eleven. You do not see any clearer than the "beast-that-lives-under-the-earth!" Look at the weapon. Look at the hunter's weapon! It is made of ivory! This man is therefore of our race! No, Rahan is not on the side of those who needlessly slaughter game and starve other clans! This desire to possess more and more ivory has made you lose your mind! You will pay with your life for your insolence like all those who defied Ghowk! The son of Crao was dragged into the cave where everything was made of ivory. The totem where he was tied up, and the torch holders where the torches burned. Before you die you must know that we will kill all the "Two-tooths"! All! All! All! We will cover this cave with ivory! We will cover the valley! We will live under ivory! On the ivory! Into the ivory! Page Twelve. We will even live with the memory of all those who dared to defy Ghowk! You will be in the territory of shadows for a long time, but we will still be able to contemplate your face, as we contemplate those who preceded you! Ghowk pointed out small figurines also carved in ivory. As soon as your face has been reproduced, you will be put to death. Get to work, Gahaor! The old man came and sat down facing the captive, a mammoth tooth in one hand, and a few flints in the other. The clan will not return until tomorrow. Here is this insolent's knife. If he does not fulfill all your wishes, cut his throat! Ghowk and his people disappeared. A herd of “Two teeth” was reported half a day's walk away. Page thirteen. And Ghowk wants to continue the massacre! Do not talk about these things! You do not seem to approve of Ghowk! Why do you obey him, Gahaor? What could I do? You now know what happens to those who resist him! Over the hours, under the precise and meticulous blows of the old man, the figurine took shape. And Rahan recognized his face, the reflection of which he had often seen in light sources. At dawn, clamors announce the return of the clan. Fire hair is an evil spirit! He is the one who made us lose track of the herd! We did not kill a single one “Two-tooth.” Oh! But here is a pleasure which compensates for this failure! Page Fourteen. Look at all of this! Gahaor has never achieved such a resemblance! Fire hair can now join the territory of shadows! Men lined up facing Rahan, javelins brandished, when strange noises resounded on the large hill. And the mammoths appeared on the ridge and descended towards the sacred vault for which so many of their number had been massacred. Ivory comes to us, the hunters! Ivory! Even more ivory! In his delirium, Ghowk and his clan went to meet the monsters. At the end of the "Sacred Path" he saw the enormous wave of hair and flesh surging. Ivory! Ivory! These were the last words of Ghowk who disappeared, trampled, crushed, buried in this land that he dreamed was lined with ivory! Page Fifteen. It is a chance for us! And I can finally do what I always wanted! Gahaor liberated Rahan. Take back your weapon and run away “Fire hair”! Flee with me! What is the point! The fantastic vault was falling apart before the charge of the pachyderms. Those of the “Ivory Clan” had disappeared. When the great hill bristled with men who hammered in succession, on what would be called "Tom-toms” a millennia later. And the mammoths, annoyed by this haunting music, disappeared in their turn. Gahaor! Page Sixteen. Struck by a “Two-tooth” the old man had ceased to live. His hand was still gripping the “Ivory Rahan”! Our clan is happy to see you alive, “Fire hair”! We knew you were in danger and we wanted to put an end to Ghowk and his massacrers! When the herd was reported the idea came to us to drive it back into the valley with the "Tom-toms"! Hunters will no longer kill the "Two-Teeth" except for food! Happiness will return to this territory, but you will not know it! You said that you were not from any clan, but the brother of all "Those-who-walk-upright"! So you will leave again. But every time we make the "Tom Toms" sing we will think of you! The son of Crao indeed set off towards new horizons. If he did not forget the Tawa clan. He never knew that they sometimes meditated in front of an ivory figurine found in the cave of Ghowk. This was good because Rahan hated the worship of idols.

Ben Westhoff. Fentanyl, incorporated. How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic. Introduction. For Christmas vacation in 2014, Bailey Henke went on a road trip, driving west across the snowy plains of North Dakota. The recent high school graduate departed his apartment in Grand Forks with his roommate, Kain Schwandt. They passed the University of North Dakota, the lumber store, and the town landfill, before the city gave way to farmland. The sky began to open up. Henke, who wore a chinstrap beard, put U2 on the stereo and watched the scenery speed by. Prone to goofy sarcasm, he had a way of putting others at ease, of putting on a brave face no matter how he felt inside. He and Schwandt knew that what lay ahead of them on this trip, that it wouldn’t be easy, but they felt optimistic. They weren’t just visiting family members for the holiday. They were traveling with a specific purpose: to get well. The two eighteen-year-old friends had developed opioid addictions. In addition to nasty heroin habits, they had recently become consumed by an even more potent and destructive drug called fentanyl. Most people, if they knew of fentanyl at all back then, knew of it as a medicine. Doctors had used it for decades, during surgeries, in epidurals for women during childbirth, and to help cancer patients and others in great pain. But around the time Henke and Schwandt started using it, fentanyl abuse was becoming increasingly common. Like heroin, fentanyl is a derivative of morphine, capable of producing both great pleasure and great suffering, except it can be fifty times stronger than heroin. Even a tiny amount can overwhelm the respiratory system, causing users to stop breathing. Henke and Schwandt initially got their fentanyl from medical patches, bought on the black market. The prescription-grade patches were intended to be stuck onto one’s chest or upper arm, to relieve pain, but Henke and Schwandt didn’t use them that way. Instead, they cut them open with a knife and squeezed out the fentanyl gel onto tin foil, and smoked it through a tube. (They didn’t shoot it up because they didn’t like needles.) Later Henke acquired fentanyl in a white powder form that was made illicitly. Fentanyl gave an incredibly powerful high, unlike anything the teens or their friends had ever experienced. “I’d never tried it until Bailey brought some over one day,” Henke’s friend Tanner Gerszewski said. “He showed me a tiny little bit and said, ‘That’s 150 dollars worth.’” Gerszewski thought it was a rip-off until they smoked some together. “I barely even got any smoke, but I was just blown away. I was sweating. I got a call, but couldn’t see the phone well enough to answer it. Heroin is strong stuff, but fentanyl is just completely on another level.” Even though Henke had been smoking heroin for some time, fentanyl raised the stakes. He was experiencing a rough patch in his life. Not long before, he had split with his girlfriend after going through her text messages and discovering she was seeing someone else. And though he dreamed of becoming a cop, he had recently dropped out of community college in nearby Devil’s Lake and started working at a local car dealership. Their drug habits were dragging them down, and so he and his close friend Schwandt resolved to get clean, to go through withdrawal on this road trip together, far away from their drug suppliers and their corrosive influences. Opioid withdrawal is notoriously difficult, but the two young men had help in the form of Suboxone, a medication designed to help people beat these types of addictions. Perhaps just as important, they had each other. Still, they expected roadblocks and soon encountered a literal one in the form of a massive blizzard. Before they could reach Minot, the western North Dakota town to which Bailey’s parents had moved, the roads became almost impassable. Finally a local police officer, taking pity on the travelers, turned on his lights and led a caravan of cars slowly down the highway, and they safely arrived at their destination. While in Minot, they hung out with Henke’s parents, went to the mall, and laughed a lot. “We had a really nice Christmas,” said Bailey’s mom, Laura Henke. Henke and Schwandt did their best to hide their withdrawal symptoms, which were beginning to kick in. “It was really uncomfortable,” Schwandt said. After Henke’s parents went to bed, they would stay up late and play video games, pilfering some beers or vodka from the liquor cabinet. The booze helped him sleep, Schwandt said, and Henke’s parents were none the wiser. In fact, Laura Henke didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. “As far as I knew, they weren’t using,” she said. The truth is, she had absolutely no idea what her son was up against. She had never even heard of fentanyl. “I was clueless,” she told me. Laura Henke wasn’t alone. As recently as 2015, very few Americans were familiar with fentanyl. After the heroin and prescription pill crisis took off in the nineteen nineties and reached epidemic levels in the following decades, heartbreaking reports increasingly appeared about decimated communities, about young victims cut down in their prime. Yet while civic leaders, law enforcement, and politicians struggled to find answers, fentanyl was quietly creating a brand-new drug epidemic, one that quickly outstripped the previous one and has become more destructive than any drug crisis in American history: worse than crack in the nineteen eighties, worse than meth in the first decade of the 2000s, worse than heroin and prescription pills in the two thousand and tens. “Fentanyl is the deadliest drug in America, CDC confirms,” read a December 2018 CNN headline. Because of its incredible potency, fentanyl is extremely difficult to dose properly. It can be lethal at only two milligrams, an amount barely visible to the eye and far smaller than a dose of heroin. Traffickers “cut” fentanyl into other drugs to give them more kick, unbeknownst to users. Thus, many fentanyl victims think they are taking heroin, cocaine, meth, or prescription pills. But when too much fentanyl is in the mix, it kills almost instantly. Driven by fentanyl, overdose drug deaths are, by the time of this book’s publication, for the first time killing more Americans under fifty-five than anything else, more than gun homicides and more than even AIDS during the peak years of the crisis. As of 2017, Americans were statistically more likely to die from an opioid overdose than a car accident. More than seventy thousand Americans died from drug overdoses in 2017 (the most recent year for which statistics were available), and synthetic opioids (mainly fentanyl and its analogues) were responsible for the greatest number of these deaths, more than twenty-eight thousand, compared to about sixteen thousand deaths from heroin overdose and about fifteen thousand from natural and synthetic opioids, including OxyContin (which contains the drug oxycodone). Compared to the previous year, the heroin and prescription opioid numbers were about flat, while synthetic-opioid deaths shot up more than 45 percent. Overdose death rates among African-Americans, middle-aged women, and young people continued to accelerate at alarming rates, with opioid deaths expected to increase 147 percent by 2025. Fentanyl has been cut into heroin for years, but now is often mixed into meth and cocaine, fueling rising death counts for those drugs, a troubling development, considering that Americans are much more likely to try meth and cocaine than heroin. In Canada the numbers are similarly astronomical, and fentanyl deaths have marched upward in Puerto Rico, Australia, and many European countries as well. In 2015 fentanyl and its analogues overtook heroin to become the deadliest drug in Sweden. “Today, we are facing the most deadly crisis in America’s history,” then US attorney general Jeff Sessions said during a 2018 press conference. “We’ve never seen anything like it.” “Fentanyl is the game changer,” Special Agent in Charge James Hunt of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) told Vice. “It’s the most dangerous substance in the history of drug trafficking. Heroin and cocaine pale in comparison to how dangerous fentanyl is.” In addition to fentanyl, a whole new generation of chemicals is radically changing the recreational drug landscape. These are known as novel psychoactive substances (NPS), and they include replacements for known drugs like ecstasy, LSD, and marijuana, as well as heroin. These new drugs aren’t grown in a field, or grown at all. They are synthetic, made in a laboratory. There’s nothing natural about them, and they are much more potent than traditional drugs. While the plants that yield the marijuana and heroin consumed in the United States have in recent times been grown in Mexico, these new drugs are most often manufactured in laboratories in China. According to Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, China produces over 90 percent of the world’s illicit fentanyl. In 2018, a Brookings Institution report stated: “Replacing drugs derived from plants (for example, heroin, cannabis) with synthetic analogues, for example, fentanyl, Spice, K2, could be the most disruptive innovation in the history of the international drug trade.” These new drugs, fake heroin, fake marijuana, fake LSD, and fake ecstasy, represent the harshest drug challenge in our history. And yet, ironically, most of them were “born” in legitimate laboratories, created by medical scientists. Long before they were hijacked by drug traffickers, they were designed to benefit society. It took decades before they landed in the hands of people looking to get high, people like Bailey Henke and Kain Schwandt. Grand Forks is an unlikely place to be at the center of a new synthetic-drug wave. A purple dot in a red state, where the locals say “pop” instead of “soda”, it couldn’t be further removed from the world’s drug epicenters. Though it’s one of North Dakota’s biggest cities, Grand Forks is really a small college town at heart, located on the scenic banks of the Red River. Some money from the oil boom on the other side of the state has trickled in, but the town remains quiet. The University of North Dakota’s Fighting Hawks (no longer known as the “Fighting Sioux”) play at their slick hockey arena, and Charlotte’s lefse stand at the farmers market offers a traditional Norwegian treat of mashed potatoes fried on a grill and served like flatbread. It’s the kind of place where locals would sooner make cheerful pleasantries than burden someone with their struggles. Still, its residents have battled drug problems before. Like many Midwestern towns, it was hit hard by methamphetamines, starting in the late nineteen nineties. Homemade labs were prevalent, until police crackdowns, and revised laws banning easy access to the cold medicines favored by crank cooks, drove the labs out. Yet the demand for meth and other hard drugs persisted. The beginning of the two thousand and tens saw the local influx of the first NPS, a new designer chemical known as K2. Often called Spice or synthetic marijuana, K2 has little in common with traditional marijuana, which gives the user a mellow buzz, whereas K2 often makes people’s hearts race, or makes them overdose. Ironically, however, K2 could be bought legally in many places at this time. In fact, a head shop in Grand Forks called Discontent sold it openly. One day while Bailey Henke was in high school, his mother, Laura, found an empty packet of K2 in the house. He lied, denying he had been using it, and instead said it belonged to his buddy Tanner Gerszewski. Suspicious, Henke’s mother forced him to sit down and watch videos of people freaking out while high on synthetic-marijuana strains like K2, which are more accurately called synthetic cannabinoids. Bailey watched as the users screamed and ran around in circles, losing their minds. Laura also paid a visit to Gerszewski’s house, just around the corner. “I’m really scared the boys are using this,” she told Tanner’s mom, who seconded her concern and added that she was planning to have her son tested for marijuana. Little did Tanner’s mom know that the threat of these tests was what inspired her son to use K2 in the first place. Unlike traditional marijuana, synthetic cannabinoids don’t show up on drug tests, not the kind parents give to their kids and not the kind instituted by employers. In fact, that’s what made K2 so popular, plus the fact that US lawmakers, since they didn’t yet know what it was, hadn’t made it illegal. There were other benefits too, at least in the eyes of Bailey and Tanner. K2 was potent, their other friends said it made them feel like they were dying, and they personally enjoyed the extra jolt. “That’s what me and Bailey liked,” Gerszewski said. “For us, it didn’t stop at going to a party and drinking and smoking on the weekends. It was about getting fucked up.” But now that he was out of high school and saddled with an opioid addiction, Henke resolved to get his life together. On the December 2014 road trip, after visiting Henke’s parents in Minot, they drove out to see Kain Schwandt’s family in Montana. It was a good time, and as they drove back eastward they congratulated themselves on accomplishing their goal. “We had both gotten clean,” said Schwandt. Around the same time in 2014, in Portland, Oregon, a woman named Channing Lacey was sliding into her stiletto heels. The twenty-seven-year-old mother of two worked as a dominatrix, controlling a stable of male slaves she had met on the Internet. Bespectacled and clad in black leather and fishnet stockings, she would beat them with whips, step on them with her high heels, or even apply clothespins, which were attached to a rope, all over their bodies and then rip them off with a flick of the rope. For the privilege, men would pay 150 to 200 dollars an hour. Lacey enjoyed her dominatrix alter ego. “I was into it,” she said. “It got a bunch of my aggression out.” This work was an escape from the rest of her life, which was becoming increasingly consumed by fentanyl. She was not only hooked on it but was assisting in what might have been, at the time, the country’s biggest illicit fentanyl operation. Growing up in Las Vegas, Lacey had dropped out of high school and gotten pregnant, in 2004, at age seventeen. After her son was born she was prescribed the opioid Vicodin and soon became addicted to pain pills. She began “doctor shopping” to get her fix. “I’d go to hospitals, I’d go to dentists, I’d get different prescriptions,” she said, including those for OxyContin, an even stronger opioid. “I manipulated the system really bad.” She even went so far as to marry a man in order to get on his health insurance. Lacey moved to the Portland area around 2005, and a year or so later descended further into drug abuse, using meth and heroin. She got clean and had a second son but then went back to heroin in the early two thousand and tens, using more heavily than before. Her habit led her to a dope house in Vancouver, Washington, just across the Columbia River from Portland, where she met an intriguing man named Brandon Hubbard. Though he was more than ten years her senior, Lacey found in him a kindred spirit. Short, with brown hair and a piercing stare, Hubbard also loved BDSM (bondage, domination, sadism, masochism) and possessed what Lacey considered to be a fierce intelligence. “His IQ level is genius,” she said. Hubbard was also hooked on pain pills. His right arm was paralyzed from an injury sustained while riding a bike years earlier, and he had been prescribed heavy doses of OxyContin. Eventually he moved to street heroin, which was cheaper. Caught up in a druggy, infatuated haze, Hubbard and Lacey became joined at the hip. “We were together every day after that,” Lacey said, adding that her mother, who lived nearby, looked after her kids. “I was a really bad addict. I was out of control.” Despite her dexterity with a whip, Lacey didn’t hold a steady job, and Hubbard wasn’t really working either. To feed their heroin addictions, Hubbard sold his OxyContin pills. It was a small-time drug hustle, and he soon shifted to selling black tar heroin, working with a local man who had a reliable connection and a good price. Hubbard’s business really took off, however, when he moved onto the Dark Web around 2013. This disguised Internet protocol was quickly helping local dealers like Hubbard become wealthy, international players. And it was enabling tech-savvy teenagers to get potent drugs delivered right to their front door by the mail carrier. In the past, to obtain illicit drugs, a buyer often had to meet up with a dealer in an alleyway or on a dangerous street corner. But as of the early two thousand and tens one doesn’t even have to leave the bedroom, it’s as easy as booting up a smartphone or laptop. To access the Dark Web, one needs a special browser, such as Tor, which disguises one’s location and identity and makes it possible to load Dark Web sites. Because these sites have hidden IP addresses, it’s almost impossible to figure out who’s running them. Not everyone on the Dark Web is a criminal. Facebook even has a presence, to circumvent censors in countries where it’s banned, like China. But the Dark Web is best known for its illegal emporiums, which run the gamut from extremely untrustworthy to quite professional, and sell almost every form of vice imaginable: credit card numbers, fake Rolexes, pornography passwords, weapons, and malware. “Make 3,000 plus dollars a Month as Fake Uber Driver,” read one recent listing. It’s stunningly easy to buy drugs, and not just traditional drugs like cocaine, ecstasy, and marijuana, but powerful NPS like fentanyl and K2. The most famous of these markets, Silk Road, was founded by a Libertarian-leaning, magic-mushroom selling, tech autodidact named Ross Ulbricht and rapidly became a billion-dollar enterprise. Using sophisticated programming techniques to cover his tracks, Ulbricht established Silk Road in 2011 and eluded law enforcement for more than two years. A rogue DEA agent, selling him tips for 50,000 each, helped him evade capture. Growing increasingly paranoid and allegedly commissioning six murders, Ulbricht was finally arrested at a San Francisco library in 2013 and eventually sentenced to life in prison. In Silk Road’s stead, another Dark Web behemoth called AlphaBay grew to be even bigger, until it too was shut down, in 2017. But new markets keep sprouting up. They are really not much different from Amazon, right down to the reviews of sellers. Customers select their wares, give an address, and pay by Bitcoin, the cyber currency preferred by these markets because it’s difficult to trace. Their discreetly wrapped items arrive soon after in the mail. Brandon Hubbard utilized the Dark Web and got rich. At first he sold heroin. His vendor name on Dark Web sites such as Evolution and Agora was “PdxBlack,” referencing Portland’s airport code and his product, black tar heroin, a sticky strain known for its dark impurities and common on the West Coast. Channing Lacey helped him package up the product. Hubbard prided himself on keeping prices low, and soon orders began pouring in from around the country. He touted his own success on Reddit, a forum commonly used by Internet drug traders, claiming to be on his way to becoming the “BTH King of the Dark Net!” Fentanyl only upped the ante. Lacey said they first encountered the drug in 2014, when Hubbard received a package from someone he had been chatting with on the website Topix. The drug knocked Lacey and Hubbard on their backs. “I did a pinhead, or maybe a bit more, and I overdosed right away,” she remembered, adding that this only increased its appeal. “In the drug addict’s mindset you’re like, ‘This stuff is fucking amazing,’ because it’s so much stronger than heroin.” With longtime use, heroin doesn’t continue to make users feel euphoric, it simply eases withdrawal symptoms. Many are drawn to fentanyl because it brings the euphoria back. “Heroin wouldn’t even get me past sick anymore,” said Bree, an addicted user from East Alton, Illinois, who prefers not to use her real name. “But fentanyl would always get me completely off sick, and high, and it always took less.” For dealers, the appeal of fentanyl is also clear: it is cheaper and more discreet, since it comes in smaller packages than heroin. And so Brandon Hubbard began ordering more. His main source was a distributor named Daniel Vivas Ceron. Originally from Colombia, Ceron had come to Canada as a child, the fact that he was currently locked up in a Quebec prison for attempted murder somehow didn’t slow him down. Allegedly working from prison with another incarcerated man, Ceron didn’t touch the fentanyl himself, but since he somehow had access to the Dark Web in prison, he didn’t have to. Using aliases, including Joe Bleau, and acting as a middleman, he ordered fentanyl from China and then paid someone on the outside to complete the transaction. Ceron’s cut from a sale might be 10,000 dollars, while his co-conspirator on the outside might get 7,000 dollars. Once the package from Ceron arrived, Lacey helped Hubbard bag up the portions and prepare the product for shipment. They cut it with mannitol, a diuretic and laxative that counters the constipation that often comes from opioid use. It also increased their profit margins. The product was a hit, and Hubbard and Ceron were in touch frequently, texting each other using encryption programs that scramble messages and make them harder for law enforcement to read. Before long, Hubbard claimed to be the biggest illicit fentanyl dealer in the country, and Lacey believed him. “He was moving a lot of packages,” she said, and his customers were paying huge quantities of Bitcoin, which he exchanged for hard cash. He was careful not to live too lavishly, he wanted to stay under the radar of law enforcement, but he splurged on some things, like a new Volkswagen GTI. In November 2014, Hubbard placed an order with Ceron for 750 grams of fentanyl. Since that is less than a kilo, it might not sound like a lot, but considering a pinhead can cause an overdose, it was a colossal shipment, with a street value of 1.5 million. What Hubbard didn’t realize was that law enforcement was on to him, having accessed the account of a boy who had purchased fentanyl from him on a Dark Web site called Evolution. Homeland Security was monitoring his activities. Almost immediately after Bailey Henke and Kain Schwandt returned from their road trip they fell off the wagon. Despite their efforts to quit fentanyl, they couldn’t stay clean long. It didn’t help that the day of their return was New Year’s Eve, and everyone was partying. Henke had some drinks that night and took some Xanax. On January 2, 2015 he went on an even bigger bender. The new calendar brought brutally cold weather to Grand Forks. The temperature hit fifteen degrees Fahrenheit that day and the next day dropped a full thirty degrees farther. Henke and Schwandt stayed out of the cold and entertained themselves by doing drugs and playing video games. With another friend they went to the house of a local dealer named Ryan Jensen. In his bedroom, they played Call of Duty and smoked fentanyl. Nineteen-year-old Jensen was under house arrest at the time, having been convicted of drunk driving. Formerly the neighborhood pot dealer, Jensen had become a Dark Web expert himself, procuring substances right off his computer. (To be safe, he had the packages sent to the address of a guy he knew in town.) Using the Dark Web site Evolution, Jensen ordered twelve grams of heroin and one gram of fentanyl from a dealer named PdxBlack, Brandon Hubbard. Of that one gram, he sold a quarter to Henke. Yet this was different than the pharmaceutical-grade fentanyl Henke usually smoked, the kind extracted from medical patches. This was white powder fentanyl. Since it had been cut with mannitol, it was impossible to know exactly how potent it was. Nonetheless, while playing video games that January 2, Henke was hitting it hard. Still, he seemed to be OK, and soon afterward Kain Schwandt agreed to drop him off at Tanner Gerszewski’s garden-level apartment, in a squat building with stained green carpeting by a trailer park. Since the days when the teens had smoked K2 together in high school, Gerszewski’s drug habit had grown worse as well. Though he maintained a job as a plumber, he was hooked on heroin and had already smoked some by the time Henke arrived, in addition to drinking and dropping acid. Still, Henke seemed to be even more intoxicated than his friend, and he threw up immediately upon walking in the door. Henke was clearly affected, but this didn’t especially faze Gerszewski. “He seemed high, but he didn’t seem in bad shape,” he said. “Me and him had seen each other all through high school in very bad states, fucked up, throwing up.” They dipped into the fentanyl Henke had bought from Jensen, and powered up the Xbox to play a mixed martial arts video game. A few other people Gerszewski knew were there too, but they left at some point, leaving the two friends alone with their drugs. As midnight approached, Henke’s energy flagged. In the midst of their game, Gerszewski noticed that Henke’s avatar had stopped moving. His friend looked like he was nodding off. Henke insisted he was fine. They continued playing until, again, Henke’s avatar stopped moving. “I’m just a little tired,” Henke said. When his character froze again, Gerszewski saw that Henke’s eyes were shut and he was growing pale. He tapped him, and then nudged him, getting no response. Gerszewski feared Henke had overdosed, but was so high himself that he had a hard time reading the situation. Was this a dream? Was Henke faking it? He grabbed and shook him. Now realizing the depth of the problem, Gerszewski made a mistake. Instead of immediately calling 911, he called Schwandt, who came over and attempted CPR. When an ambulance finally arrived, it was too late. Just after midnight, Bailey Henke was pronounced dead. About three hours later a police officer knocked on his parents’ door in Minot. He told them the bad news, but Laura and Jason Henke couldn’t get to Grand Forks until the next evening to begin the mourning process. Another big snowstorm had closed down the highway. Bailey Henke’s death triggered the widest-ranging fentanyl investigation in history. Known as Operation Denial, it’s an international endeavor begun in 2015 and still ongoing at the time this book went to print, involving agencies from the local Grand Forks police department to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to the US Border Patrol and the DEA. It has tracked down people from every step in the fentanyl supply chain that killed Henke and charged thirty-two. These include Ryan Jensen, who in 2016 received a prison sentence of twenty years for charges including drug distribution resulting in death, Brandon Hubbard, who that year received life in prison, and Daniel Vivas Ceron, who was still awaiting trial. Investigators believe Hubbard earned millions from his Dark Web sales of fentanyl and heroin, and that his collaboration with Ceron was responsible for twelve fentanyl overdose victims and four deaths around the country, including Bailey Henke and another Grand Forks teenager, nineteen-year-old Evan Poitra, who died in July 2014. Others on the periphery of the wide-ranging case were convicted as well, including Kain Schwandt, who spent about a year and a half behind bars, for conspiracy to possess illicit drugs with intent to distribute, and Channing Lacey, who snuck in fentanyl when she went to jail and distributed it there, causing a fatal overdose. She received eleven years for drug distribution resulting in death. For its efforts, in November 2018, Operation Denial received special recognition from the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy. Yet for all of Operation Denial’s convictions, it has not been able to snag the person at the very top of the drug pyramid, Jian Zhang, the Chinese man who is believed to have manufactured the fentanyl that killed Henke and others. Zhang is a chemical manufacturer born in 1978 and operating out of Shanghai. His company claims to make benign food additives, including spices and soy products, but in April, 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions traveled to Fargo to unseal an indictment against Zhang, accusing him of leading a drug ring that manufactured fentanyl sold throughout the United States. The indictment listed eleven states, including North Dakota and Oregon. Zhang has been pursued with the full weight of not just the US Department of Justice but also the Treasury, which designated him a kingpin under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, blocking his US financial assets and those of his company, Zaron Bio-Tech (Asia) Limited. “Combating the flow of fentanyl into the United States is a top priority of this administration,” Sigal Mandelker, under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement. “This action will disrupt the flow of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids into the United States.” Yet the United States couldn’t jail Jian Zhang, because China refused to turn him over. The country has no extradition treaty with the United States, and China does not believe Zhang to be a criminal. Yu Haibin, director of precursor chemical control at China’s Narcotics Control Commission, said that although the country’s police were investigating Zhang, they did not have “solid evidence” that he broke Chinese law. Further, Chinese officials are quick to note, most NPS were invented in labs in Europe and the United States. And this isn’t just a problem of production, it’s one of consumption. China believes America needs to control its drug problem. Considering that fentanyl has been banned (except for medical use) in China for decades, it’s unclear why China could not, or simply did not, prosecute Zhang. But there’s an even bigger problem. Many of the other NPS killing Americans, Europeans, and others are still 100 percent legal in China, even while banned in the West. In recent years, some of the biggest new drug kingpins can’t be successfully prosecuted. The Pablo Escobars of today are coming out of China, and they don’t have to worry about being imprisoned by their government. They can often operate free and in the clear, within the boundaries of their country’s own laws. Whenever a deadly new drug is made illegal in China, manufacturers simply tweak its chemical structure and start producing a new drug that is still legal. Many fentanyl analogues and synthetic cannabinoids have been made this way. Though Chinese authorities have pledged to crack down, and in April, 2019, said they would ban all fentanyl analogues, their efforts so far have barely dented the country’s clandestine international trade. The rise of fentanyl and NPS happened quickly. When I started investigating these new drugs in 2013, fentanyl wasn’t on the public radar at all. I had never heard of it. In fact, I only came to this story by accident. Living in Los Angeles at the time, as the music editor at LA Weekly, I was investigating why so many people were dying at raves. Electronic dance music (EDM) had recently exploded in popularity, and with its rise came increasing deaths, mostly young kids experimenting with ecstasy. I wasn’t new to the scene. In the late nineteen nineties I partied in abandoned San Francisco warehouses and deserted beach spots as part of the first wave of American electronic dance music, people then called it electronica. These events were usually populated only by those who had garnered a personal invitation from a friend of the organizer, to get directions one had to call a secret phone line. On the scene, maybe a few dozen people would dance to cutting-edge, drum-machine-driven beats. The drugs, ecstasy and LSD, made participants especially appreciate exotic rhythms. These ravers and club kids wore fluorescent colors and giant goggles and chewed on pacifiers or breathed Vicks VapoRub beneath surgical masks to enhance the sensation of ecstasy. I, along with most Americans, dropped out of the scene by the middle of the first decade of the 2000s. EDM’s popularity continued unabated in Europe, while in the United States many stars saw their music fall off the charts. But by the two thousand and tens electronic dance music was back and bigger than ever, drawing tens of thousands of neon-clad kids to raves. The new raves couldn’t have been more different from the underground parties I had attended. No longer secret affairs featuring obscure sounds, today’s EDM events feature celebrity DJs spinning in mammoth venues such as stadiums and racetracks. Electric Daisy Carnival, now held every spring in Las Vegas, draws some four hundred thousand attendees. In the music industry, which had been decimated by audio-sharing services and still hadn’t recovered in the early two thousand and tens, EDM was a shining star, awash in profits and adored by millions of young fans. And Los Angeles was the center of its universe. EDM was being celebrated in the national media as a big neon party that never ended. And then I heard about the deaths. In 2010, fifteen-year-old Sasha Rodriguez fatally overdosed at Electric Daisy Carnival at the LA Coliseum, reportedly from ecstasy. Local politicians revolted, and the event was forced to relocate to Las Vegas. A Plymouth State University student named Brittany Flannigan overdosed and died in late August 2013 after attending a Boston EDM concert featuring the popular DJ Zedd, and just days later a University of Virginia student named Mary “Shelley” Goldsmith passed away as well. Both were nineteen, and reports said they had taken “Molly.” At the time, many believed Molly was pure MDMA, the drug found in ecstasy, also known as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine. But this didn’t seem right. The Molly users I witnessed dipped their fingers into a plastic bag of white powder and then licked it off, repeating the process every ten minutes or so. Some would snort it. This was different from my heyday on the rave scene. Back then, the ravers I knew simply took a pill and would be happily rolling for the whole night. With mega-raves came increasing numbers of casualties. At New York’s Electric Zoo over Labor Day weekend in 2013, a twenty-year-old University of New Hampshire student named Olivia Rotondo and a twenty-three-year-old recent graduate of Syracuse University named Jeffrey Russ both collapsed and died, reportedly after taking Molly. At the Hard Summer festival in August 2015, outside Los Angeles, two young women fatally overdosed and forty-nine people had to be taken to emergency rooms. The event sparked a Los Angeles Times article quoting emergency-room doctors as saying that raves on LA-county-owned property should be banned, at least temporarily. “If the county wants to make money while people are dying and medically compromised,” said Doctor Philip Fagan Junior, emergency department director at Los Angeles’s Good Samaritan Hospital, “they should come out and say it.” These weren’t just freak accidents. The more I covered the EDM scene, the more I realized how widespread the fatalities were. Six people overdosed and died at a single EDM festival in Malaysia in 2014, while just about every major US EDM concert, including Electric Daisy Carnival, Nocturnal Wonderland, Together as One, Monster Massive, Coachella, Ultra, and Electric Forest, saw festival-goers die from drug use. No statistics were available about the number of deaths at EDM festivals. But no one could dispute a disturbing fact: the number was growing. Officials blamed ecstasy, a word many used synonymously with Molly, but that contradicts the relatively benign nature of the chemical. “You don’t see many ecstasy overdose deaths,” confirmed Emanuel Sferios, the founder of DanceSafe, a Denver-based organization dedicated to harm reduction at music festivals and other events. He estimates that MDMA deaths per year in the United States number around twenty, not just kids at raves, but everyone, which is a tiny fraction of total drug deaths. Further, large numbers of the MDMA deaths weren’t brought about because users’ dosages were too high, he adds, but because they suffered from heatstroke, from dancing continuously without drinking water or wearing themselves out beneath the hot sun. Molly, however, is not ecstasy as it has been known. “Molly means, like, anything now,” a Dallas toxicologist named Ashley Haynes warned. It might contain a small amount of MDMA but most likely contains a hodgepodge of bizarre drugs with complicated chemical names users have never heard of, including so-called “bath salts.” It turns out, she added, that there are hundreds of these new drugs. Almost every traditional drug, be it marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, or heroin, is being replaced by new, sinister versions made in laboratories. Further, as I discovered, they were being distributed in new ways, like the Dark Web, leading to an entirely upended drug landscape that nobody seemed to understand, not the parents of children who had lost their lives, not first responders, not cops, and certainly not politicians. The people consuming many of these bastardized types of speed, psychedelics, and other substances are not traditional hard-drug users. They are high school kids, college students, and recreational enthusiasts best described as drug nerds. Some know what they are doing, using sophisticated Internet forums to expand their minds and explore intellectual pursuits. A great many, however, have no idea just how potent and dangerous these new drugs can be. NPS are hard to spot, as they can come as powders, crystals, pills, or liquids, resembling traditional drugs, or even sprayed onto dried sage to be smoked like marijuana. Sometimes they are even professionally packaged and sold in stores, mislabeled as “bath salts” or “potpourri.” These new drugs aren’t just confounding users. In recent years, law enforcement agencies have seized exponentially larger quantities of NPS, but this is a drop in the bucket. By the time police get wise to these chemicals, rogue manufacturers have already moved on to new formulas, because when it comes to creating synthetic drugs, the mathematical possibilities are endless. By varying a molecule just slightly, rogue chemists can come up with a whole new drug, one that is still legal because it hasn’t yet been scheduled (controlled and restricted). After the chemicals sold as K2 and Spice were banned, for example, a whole new set of fake marijuana blends immediately popped up in their place. “Over the past several years, the DEA has identified hundreds of designer drugs from at least eight different drug classes,” DEA special agent Elaine Cesare observed. “There are a seemingly infinite number of possible new chemical compounds that are on the horizon.” Many law enforcement officers use the same expression when describing their attempts to stop these drugs: a game of whack-a-mole. Whenever one new drug is contained, another simply pops up in its place. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has called the synthetics industry “hydra-headed.” “When you control one derivative of fentanyl, another derivative comes out, which is not on the control list. Criminals are always one step ahead of law enforcement,” said Tun Nay Soe, of the UNODC. This book is the result of my interviews with 160 people, visits to drug sites and laboratories all over the world, and research drawn from hundreds of source materials. In some cases, often to preserve their own safety, subjects have requested I use pseudonyms, they are identified as such in the text. While reporting the story of NPS, I met people suffering from fentanyl and other drug addictions, some destitute and living on the streets, others functioning in well-paid jobs. I spent time with psychonauts, thrill seekers who try brand-new drugs that have never been taken before. I learned how these chemicals are marketed and sold, from the factories to the streets to the search engine. I spent months on every step of the drug-distribution ladder, with everyone from low-level dealers to big-time traffickers, from the industrial manufacturers to the inventors of the drugs themselves. I went back over the details of my close friend Michael “Helias” Schafermeyer’s death in Baltimore, from fentanyl combined with alcohol, in 2010, long before I knew what fentanyl was. I consulted politicians, police, DEA agents, and international drug policy makers, who would like to put these traffickers away forever, and I spoke with counselors, doctors, activists, and policy wonks, some of whom believe these drugs should be legal. I corresponded with two infamous, now-imprisoned LSD kingpins who worked together out of an abandoned missile silo in Kansas, the demise of their operation in 2000 may have inadvertently fueled the rise of a new hallucinogen whose effects are far worse than LSD. I learned how a brilliant Belgian chemist created a multibillion dollar pharmaceutical company from scratch but in the process unleashed a horror like nothing ever seen before. I prowled dangerous Saint Louis streets with an armed former fentanyl dealer to understand how the epidemic started, tracing the history to Mexican cartel affiliates who traveled north to spread what had originated in China into inner cities all over the United States. Finally, I infiltrated a pair of Chinese drug operations, one a sophisticated laboratory operation distilling outsize quantities of the world’s most dangerous chemicals in industrial-size glassware, and the other an office of young, cheery salespeople, who sat in rows of cubicles and sold fentanyl ingredients to American dealers and Mexican cartels. The latter company didn’t even bother operating clandestinely, instead doing its business out in the open. That’s because, as I soon learned, the Chinese government offers subsidies and tax rebates to chemical companies that are making these drugs. It’s a case of financial incentives gone horribly wrong, one that seems likely to drive a further wedge between two powerful countries that are already extremely wary of each other. “We need to make very clear to the Chinese, that this is an act of war. You are sending this into our country to kill our people,” said former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who headed President Trump’s opioid epidemic commission, in the fall of 2017, speaking about fentanyl. China is “sending that garbage and killing our people,” added President Trump, at an August 2018 cabinet meeting. “It’s almost a form of warfare.” The former director of the DEA’s Special Operations Division, Derek Maltz, used stark terms to describe the fentanyl-driven opioid epidemic. “Where it becomes a national security emergency is the connectivity between the drug traffickers and the terrorists that are out there that are trying to destroy our way of life,” he said in November 2018. Such rhetoric aside, America’s problem with fentanyl and other new drugs undermines its national security as much as, perhaps more than, any other issue in the headlines, with the wrecking of families and relationships, the massive casualty toll, and the billions needed to fight the scourge. Many American political and thought leaders have castigated China’s negligence, some even believe it is purposeful. Addressing the problem is extremely complicated, however, because this is a story that goes well beyond drugs. It’s a political story about the clashing of the world’s biggest superpowers. It’s an economics story about the deception of giant pharmaceutical companies. It’s a higher-education story about how university science can go horribly wrong. It’s a tech story about incredible innovation happening in real time, a business story about marketing genius. It’s a physiological and philosophical story about the human body in conflict with the human mind. And it’s forcing us to rethink our assumptions. The drug economy no longer just benefits the producers and dealers. Nowadays it involves the otherwise innocent people who deliver our mail, who program Internet algorithms, who design medicine in chemistry labs, who scrub toilets at drug companies. More than anything, this is a story of global capitalism run amok. The new-drugs trade is growing for the same reasons the world economy is growing, increasing speed of communications, Internet technology, and shipping, relaxed barriers to trade, and, of course, the ever-present pressure for higher profit margins. And if global capitalism is hard to control, the new-drugs trade is nearly impossible, given that it is peopled by local actors in jurisdictions with no overlap interacting with far-flung markets and supply chains. Part One. The New Drugs. One. Americans have used and abused opiatesfor as long as America has existed. Opium was administered to Revolutionary War soldiers, and for much of our history it was one of the only medicines available, given to colicky babies, the dying elderly, and everyone in between. Misuse may even have been more common in previous centuries than now, and the problem grew particularly acute after the Civil War, during which morphine was used to soothe the injured. In fact, the termsoldier’s diseasewas coined to describe opiate addiction. At the dawn of the twentieth century, one could buy opium from the Sears, Roebuck catalog, yet addiction was so widespread that President Theodore Roosevelt appointed an opium commissioner in 1908. During the industrial revolution the problem ravaged the United Kingdom as well, and the country sought to balance its trade deficit by using its British East India Company to ply opium in tremendous quantities to the Chinese, causing a pair of wars. Never, however, has an opiate, or any other drug, for that matter, killed so many annually as the fentanyl epidemic. It is the next phase in the opioid crisis that began with the overprescription of opioid painkillers, which was catalyzed by a short letter published in a 1980 issue of theNew England Journal of Medicine.Written by a doctor named Hershel Jick and his graduate student, Jane Porter, the letter discussed the thousands of cases they had examined in which patients received opioid narcotics. In only four cases had anyone become addicted, they claimed, and only one of those was troubling. “We conclude that despitewidespread use of narcotic drugs in hospitals, the development of addiction is rare in medical patients with no history of addiction.” The above sentence was one of only five in Jick and Porter’s letter, which was far from comprehensive. It referenced only patients who received small doses and were closely monitored by their doctors, not outpatients taking home bottles of ultra-strong prescription drugs. Nonetheless, the letter had great influence, academics cited it in more than six hundred studies, and doctors and pharmaceutical companies pitching their products deferred to it as well. During the nineteen nineties another sea change swept American medicine: the desire to treat patients more humanely. Traditionally, doctors focused on four “vital signs” when caring for patients: their temperature, breathing rate, blood pressure, and pulse rate. But in the mid-nineteen nineties the American Pain Society called for pain to be considered a new “fifth vital sign.” Whereas doctors were previously reticent to prescribe opioids because they considered them addictive, the ramifications of the Jick-Porter letter caused their thinking to shift: if opioids were, in fact, safe, patients should not be consigned to agony. “It was not only okay, butit was ourholy mission, to cure the world of its pain by waking people up to the fact that opiates were safe,” Boston pain specialist Doctor Nathaniel Katz told journalist Sam Quinones for his bookDreamland: The True Tale Of America’s Opiate Epidemic,describing the new conventional wisdom that took hold. “All those rumors of addiction were misguided. My fellowship director even told me, ‘If you have pain, you can’t get addicted to opiates because the pain soaks up the euphoria.’” The Sackler family, the owners of the company responsible for OxyContin, became billionaires many times over thanks to this new perspective. Long before the drug’s creation, Arthur Sackler, a physician by training, had been a pioneer in the field of pharmaceutical advertising. In 1952, Arthur and his brothers, Raymond and Mortimer, purchased the company that became Purdue Pharma. With the inherent conflict of advertising and pharmaceuticals in its DNA, Purdue brought OxyContin to market in 1996, touting its benefits as a slow-release pill that contained high doses of the opioid oxycodone, continmeans “continuous.” Since the pills lasted twelve hours, the company claimed, patients would need only two per day, fewer than comparable medicines. Addiction, it promised, was extremely rare. Purdue launched a huge marketing blitz, deploying hundreds of salespeople to sway doctors and dispense free promotional items, including pedometers, headgear, and even an OxyContin-branded music CD,Swing Is Alive,with a pair of dancing geriatrics on the cover. Purdue sent doctors to tropical locations for “pain management seminars,” those who attended these events in 1996 weremore than twiceas likely to write OxyContin prescriptions as doctors who did not. Although originally OxyContin was promoted for use by cancer patients, according to internal reports, the company saw that market as too small. Annual sales might top out around 260 million dollars, whereas if Purdue was able to sell to patients with a host of chronic conditions, the annual market was closer to 1.3 billion. Sales rose from just under 50 million in 1996 to more than 1 billion by 2000. Oxycodone became the most prescribed drug in the United States. Yet for many patients, the dosages didn’t last an entire half day, and they began experiencing withdrawal symptoms when the pills wore off hours early. And while Purdue salespeople told doctors that less than 1 percent of OxyContin patients would become addicted,Purdue’s own studyfrom 1999 found the rate to be 13 percent. Misuse became rampant. Many users crushed the pills, known by some as “hillbilly heroin,” into powder form to snort or make into an injectable solution, so they could get high faster. Others fashioned themselves into drug dealers and sold them, the going rate on the street for OxyContin was one dollar per milligram, meaning that an eighty-milligram pill sold for eighty dollars. For some, using OxyContin as directed caused anguish. Patients recovering from knee surgery or a root canal, or experiencing chronic pain from a condition like rheumatoid arthritis, gained temporary relief but soon confronted a new problem: when their prescription ran out, they were addicted. Many tried to “doctor shop” for more pills, but some who couldn’t do that, or couldn’t afford the pills, turned to heroin, whichis cheaper, as low as five dollars a dose in some places, and satisfied their opioid cravings. Before they knew it, they were regularly visiting dangerous parts of town to meet heroin dealers. This is a complex problem. The vast majority of legitimate users of OxyContin and other opioid medicines receive the intended benefit. For the most part, people dying from oxycodone overdoses tend to get the pills on the black market, not their doctors. Nonetheless, Purdue bears “the lion’s share” of the blame for America’s opioid crisis, according to Andrew Kolodny, the codirector of the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative at Brandeis University. “If you look at the prescribing trends for all the different opioids,it’s in 1996that prescribing really takes off,” Kolodny said, referencing the year OxyContin debuted. “It’s not a coincidence. That was the year Purdue launched a multifaceted campaign that misinformed the medical community about the risks.” The company, found guilty of playing down OxyContin’s abuse potential, paid 600 million in fines in 2007. Considering the billions it had earned, and would continue to earn, this seemed a pittance. No one from the company received jail time, causing then US senator Arlen Specter, from Pennsylvania, to take issue with the sentence. “I see fines with some frequency and think that they are expensive licenses for criminal misconduct,” he said at a Senate hearing. “I do not know whether that applies in this case, buta jail sentenceis a deterrent and a fine is not.” In 2010 Purdue released a new version of OxyContin that couldn’t be crushed up and injected, which the company believed would help stymie abuse. The FDA agreed. However, this new pill may have worsened the opioid crisis. In a2015 study, psychiatristsat Washington University in Saint Louis interviewed 244 people who had sought treatment for addiction to the new version of OxyContin. The study showed that while many were able to kick their OxyContin habit, about one-third of the subjects migrated to other drugs. Seven out of ten in this group started taking heroin. Further, in the early two thousand and tens, prescription narcotics became harder to obtain. This, along with heroin shortages, likely accelerated fentanyl use in the United States, concluded a2018 study atthe University of California, San Francisco. (Fentanyl is an odd case, the UC San Francisco researchers noted, since its rise wasn’t drivenbecause people wanted it, they just feared withdrawal and didn’t have access to other opioids. As one indication of this, unlike most drugs, which develop street names, smack, weed, Molly, fentanyl doesn’t havemuch in the way of nicknames.) Charges have also mounted against Insys Therapeutics, makers of the prescription fentanyl spray Subsys. The company has been sued by many parties, including state governments and individual patients, and its executives have been indicted (and in some cases pled guilty) of bribing doctors to prescribe Subsys. The spray is approved only for cancer patients, but individual doctors have been accused of prescribing it for lesser ailments and accepting gratuitous kickbacks. A former Insys sales rep named Maria Guzman detailed in her 2013 whistleblower lawsuit that the company provided doctors with stock options, trips to a gun range, fancy dinners, and even hired a woman specifically “to havesexual relations withdoctors in exchange for Subsys prescriptions.”The FDA hadinformation about doctors prescribing Subsys and other fentanyl medications for noncancer patients but did little to stop it, according to documents obtained by Johns Hopkins public-health researchers. Operating under the public radar as the crisis ramped up were drug distributors like Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, and McKesson, which filled gigantic opioid prescription orders from corrupt doctors operating pill mills. For example, a drugstore in the small West Virginia town of Kermit (population: four hundred) received nine million hydrocodone pills in only two years. A 2017 investigation by television news program60 Minutesand theWashington Postoutlined this practice and helped expose howCongress allowed it, andeven encouraged it. As laid out by whistleblower Joe Rannazzisi, the former head of the DEA’s Office of Diversion Control, a 2016 law called the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act, signed by President Barack Obama, made it harder for the DEA to freeze suspicious opioid shipments by these drug distributors. The law had been sponsored by Pennsylvania representative Tom Marino, who, at the time of the investigation’s publication, was President Trump’s nominee for drug czar. He was forced to withdraw. Did Obama realize the law, which Congress quickly green-lighted, without debate, would have such devastating consequences? No, concluded an October 2017Washington Poststory: “Few lawmakers knewthe true impact the law would have,” it reads, adding that the White House was also unaware. Nonetheless, according to a 2019Washington Postanalysis, the Obama administration did not take sufficient measures to stem the fentanyl crisis as it developed. Pharmaceutical companies making opioids, among them Purdue, as well as others along the supply chain, including distributors, find themselves facing major lawsuits from states, cities, and other groups, supported by the US Justice Department. The groups seek something similar to the big tobacco settlement of 1998, which required cigarette companies to pay billions annually to the states, and limited the industry’s marketing, to compensate for the heavy costs of dealing with the health effects of smoking. The state of Florida has also included the country’s biggest chain pharmacies, Walgreens and CVS, in its lawsuit, because of their roles in selling opioids, and Oklahoma is targeting Johnson and Johnson for its role in the crisis, including selling fentanyl through its Janssen subsidiary. By the mid-two thousand and tens prescription pill deaths in the United States began leveling off, but “for every life we save from a prescription overdose,” said Joel Bomgar, vice chairman of the House Medicaid Committee in the Mississippi House of Representatives, “four more aredying from switching to heroin and fentanyl.” Fentanyl is frequently cut into heroin but, increasingly, fentanyl is also being pressed into pills that look exactly like name-brand prescription tablets. Raids across the United States have turned up operations in houses and apartments that turn fentanyl powder into tablets using specialized presses. Both the drugs and the machines are bought from China. These operations can make thousands of pills per hour. They stamp the pills with the OxyContin or Percocet logo, making them indistinguishable. This trend has quickly gained steam. In Arizonaalone, the DEA reported seizing more than 120,000 fentanyl pills in 2017. And in May 2018, three twenty-one-year-old brothers from Raleigh, North Carolina, identical triplets named Atsouste, Etse, and Atsou Dossou, were arrested, accused of running a vast drug operation, which included making and selling thousands of fake Xanax bars cut with fentanyl. “The issue ofcounterfeit drugs is more complex and extensive than what can be seen on the surface,” retired Phoenix detective sergeant David Lake said at a roundtable discussion on the opioid crisis held in August 2018. “The constant threat from online sales, illegal pharmacies and street sales is stretching the limited law enforcement resources dedicated to this issue in many states and communities to the breaking point.” The dosages of these fake pills vary greatly. One might have ten times as much fentanyl as the next. Investigators believe such counterfeit pills were responsible for the death of music star Prince, about one hundred white pills found on his property looked exactly like Vicodin but actually contained fentanyl. It’s not clear how he obtained them,he may nothave realized he was taking counterfeit medication. (Michael Todd Schulenberg, a Minnesota doctor who investigators believe prescribed opioids for Prince under another person’s name, paid 30,000 dollars to settle a Controlled Substances Act violation and is being sued by relatives of Prince, but he is not being charged criminally in the musician’s death.) Cocaine can also be spiked with fentanyl. American cocaine overdose deaths remained fairly steady throughout the first decade of the two thousands, ranging from roughly four thousand to seven thousand, but in the second decade began to surge, exceeding fourteen thousand in 2017. Fentanyl is part of the reason for this.Cocaine production isat an all-time high, and the product is flooding the market, but it’s far from pure. Because they are both white powders, cocaine and fentanyl can be mixed easily, and fentanyl sometimes “contaminates” cocaine parcels, where the drugs are prepared in the same space.Fentanyl was involvedin two of five cocaine overdose deaths in 2016, the most recent year for which such statistics are available. This trend disproportionately affectsAfrican Americans, whoare nearly twice as likely to die from cocaine overdoses as white people. In New York City in 2016, more than one-third of all fatal drug overdose victims had both fentanyl and cocaine in their systems. By the end of 2017,in Massachusetts, cocaineused in conjunction with fentanyl was killing more people than heroin spiked with fentanyl, andin Ohio, cocainewas often mixed with carfentanil, a tranquilizer used to subdue rhinos and elephants (sometimes shot from dart guns) that can be one hundred times more potent than fentanyl. In July 2018 the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield Junior, revealed that his thirty-seven-year-old son had nearly died from cocaine laced with fentanyl. Two months later, the popular rapper Mac Miller died in his Studio City, California, home, with fentanyl and cocaine in his system, and in December, 2018, Vine and HQ Trivia cofounder Colin Kroll was found dead with heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, and an analogue called fluoroisobutyryl fentanyl in his system. Fentanyl’s rapid growth in the drug economy is putting users, from recreational to deeply addicted, at risk of grave consequences. Two. Humanity has long mined psychoactive chemicals from the natural world to worship gods, to feel bliss, to commune with the dead, to heal, to avoid problems, to escape ennui, to make art, or to just go on a little adventure of the mind. At first, people ingested these chemicals directly from living things, eating mushrooms, cactus buttons, and morning glory seeds, chewing coca and khat leaves, inhaling tree snuff, smoking cannabis, opium, or even the venom of toads, fermenting grapes and barley, curing tobacco, steeping leaves, and roasting beans. Historically, only a few handfuls of different compounds have been used reliably to get people high, but over the past hundred years or so, humankind has learned to synthesize the active chemicals in laboratories and to manipulate chemical structures to invent new drugs, the numbers of which began growing exponentially in the two thousand and tens. Anyone with computer acumen can acquire hundreds of psychoactive compounds that didn’t exist even a few years ago. According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, 150 new illicit drugs were bought and sold between 1997 and 2010. Another 150 appeared in just the next three years, and since then, in some years as many as 100 new chemicals have appeared, with synthetic cannabinoids especially common. Though they can be incredibly potent and affect the body in new ways, these latest drugs aren’t conceived out of thin air. In fact, many are derived from the same naturally occurring chemicals our ancestors have been using for thousands of years. Fentanyl, for example, is a new plague, but its natural predecessor, the opium poppy, has been used (and abused) since at least the Mesopotamian era. The story of fentanyl, however, can be traced to one man: Paul Janssen. A Belgian chemist, Janssen was undoubtedly a genius. He could quote Homer in the Ancient Greek. During World War Two he studied chemistry and other sciences at university in Namur, Belgium, enrolling secretly, despite the Nazi occupation, and in 1948, when he was twenty-two, he funded a trip to America in part by beating opponents in chess, at venues including the Manhattan Chess Club. What Janssen was best known for was creating medicines. Over his lifetime, he was responsible for some eighty new medical drugs, including fentanyl. One biographer called him “the most prolificdrug inventor of all time.” His brilliance wasn’t just in coming up with new medicines but in realizing that new medicines could be created in the first place. Janssen was born in 1926 in the small Belgian town of Turnhout. When she was four, Janssen’s younger sister died of tubercular meningitis, a then untreatable condition that can now be controll

The Coddling of the American Mind. How good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure. Greg Lukianoff is the president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). Lukianoff is a graduate of American University and Stanford Law School. He specializes in free speech and First Amendment issues in higher education. He is the author of Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate and Freedom From Speech. Jonathan Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He obtained his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992, and then taught at the University of Virginia for 16 years. He is the author of The Righteous Mind and The Happiness Hypothesis. PART One. Three Bad Ideas. CHAPTER 1. The Untruth of Fragility: What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Weaker. When heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on any man, it will exercise his mind with suffering, subject his sinews and bones to hard work, expose his body to hunger, put him to poverty, place obstacles in the paths of his deeds, so as to stimulate his mind, harden his nature, and improve wherever he is incompetent. MENG TZU, fourth century BC. In August 2009, Max Haidt, age three, had his first day of preschool in Charlottesville, Virginia. But before he was allowed to take the first step on his eighteen-year journey to a college degree, his parents, Jon and Jayne, had to attend a mandatory orientation session where the rules and procedures were explained by Max’s teacher. The most important rule, judging by the time spent discussing it, was: no nuts. Because of the risk to children with peanut allergies, there was an absolute prohibition on bringing anything containing nuts into the building. Of course, peanuts are legumes, not nuts, but some kids have allergies to tree nuts, too, so along with peanuts and peanut butter, all nuts and nut products were banned. And to be extra safe, the school also banned anything produced in a factory that processes nuts, so many kinds of dried fruits and other snacks were prohibited, too. As the list of prohibited substances grew, and as the clock ticked on, Jon asked the assembled group of parents what he thought was a helpful question: “Does anyone here have a child with any kind of nut allergy? If we know about the kids’ actual allergies, I’m sure we’ll all do everything we can to avoid risk. But if there’s no kid in the class with such an allergy, then maybe we can lighten up a bit and instead of banning all those things, just ban peanuts?” The teacher was visibly annoyed by Jon’s question, and she moved rapidly to stop any parent from responding. Don’t put anyone on the spot, she said. Don’t make any parent feel uncomfortable. Regardless of whether anyone in the class is affected, these are the school’s rules. You can’t blame the school for being so cautious. Peanut allergies were rare among American children up until the mid-nineteen nineties, when one study found that only four out of a thousand children under the age of eight had such an allergy, meaning probably nobody in Max’s entire preschool of about one hundred kids. But by 2008, according to the same survey, using the same measures, the rate had more than tripled, to fourteen out of a thousand, meaning probably one or two kids in Max’s school. Nobody knew why American children were suddenly becoming more allergic to peanuts, but the logical and compassionate response was obvious: Kids are vulnerable. Protect them from peanuts, peanut products, and anything that has been in contact with nuts of any kind. Why not? What’s the harm, other than some inconvenience to parents preparing lunches? But it turns out that the harm was severe. It was later discovered that peanut allergies were surging precisely because parents and teachers had started protecting children from exposure to peanuts back in the nineteen nineties. In February 2015, an authoritative study was published. The LEAP (Learning Early About Peanut Allergy) study was based on the hypothesis that “regular eating of peanut containing products, when started during infancy, will elicit a protective immune response instead of an allergic immune reaction.” The researchers recruited the parents of 640 infants (four to eleven months old) who were at high risk of developing a peanut allergy because they had severe eczema or had tested positive for another allergy. The researchers told half the parents to follow the standard advice for high-risk kids, which was to avoid all exposure to peanuts and peanut products. The other half were given a supply of a snack made from peanut butter and puffed corn and were told to give some to their child at least three times a week. The researchers followed all the families carefully, and when the children turned five years old, they were tested for an allergic reaction to peanuts. The results were stunning. Among the children who had been “protected” from peanuts, 17 percent had developed a peanut allergy. In the group that had been deliberately exposed to peanut products, only 3 percent had developed an allergy. As one of the researchers said in an interview, “For decades allergists have been recommending that young infants avoid consuming allergenic foods such as peanut to prevent food allergies. Our findings suggest that this advice was incorrect and may have contributed to the rise in the peanut and other food allergies.” It makes perfect sense. The immune system is a miracle of evolutionary engineering. It can’t possibly anticipate all the pathogens and parasites a child will encounter, especially in a mobile and omnivorous species such as ours, so it is “designed” (by natural selection) to learn rapidly from early experience. The immune system is a complex adaptive system, which can be defined as a dynamic system that is able to adapt in and evolve with a changing environment. It requires exposure to a range of foods, bacteria, and even parasitic worms in order to develop its ability to mount an immune response to real threats (such as the bacterium that causes strep throat) while ignoring nonthreats (such as peanut proteins). Vaccination uses the same logic. Childhood vaccines make us healthier not by reducing threats in the world (“Ban germs in schools!”) but by exposing children to those threats in small doses, thereby giving children’s immune systems the opportunity to learn how to fend off similar threats in the future. This is the underlying rationale for what is called the hygiene hypothesis, the leading explanation for why allergy rates generally go up as countries get wealthier and cleaner, another example of a problem of progress. Developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik explains the hypothesis succinctly and does us the favor of linking it to our mission in this book: Thanks to hygiene, antibiotics and too little outdoor play, children don’t get exposed to microbes as they once did. This may lead them to develop immune systems that overreact to substances that aren’t actually threatening, causing allergies. In the same way, by shielding children from every possible risk, we may lead them to react with exaggerated fear to situations that aren’t risky at all and isolate them from the adult skills that they will one day have to master. This brings us to the oracle’s first Great Untruth, the Untruth of Fragility: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker. Of course, Nietzsche’s original aphorism, “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”, is not entirely correct if taken literally, some things that don’t kill you can still leave you permanently damaged and diminished. But teaching kids that failures, insults, and painful experiences will do lasting damage is harmful in and of itself. Human beings need physical and mental challenges and stressors or we deteriorate. For example, muscles and joints need stressors to develop properly. Too much rest causes muscles to atrophy, joints to lose range of motion, heart and lung function to decline, and blood clots to form. Without the challenges imposed by gravity, astronauts develop muscle weakness and joint degeneration. Antifragility. No one has done a better job of explaining the harm of avoiding stressors, risks, and small doses of pain than Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the Lebanese-born statistician, stock trader, and polymath who is now a professor of risk engineering at New York University. In his 2007 best seller, The Black Swan, Taleb argued that most of us think about risk in the wrong way. In complex systems, it is virtually inevitable that unforeseen problems will arise, yet we persist in trying to calculate risk based on past experiences. Life has a way of creating completely unexpected events, events Taleb likens to the appearance of a black swan when, based on your past experience, you assumed that all swans were white. Taleb was one of the few who predicted the global financial crisis of 2008, based on the financial system’s vulnerability to “black swan” events. In his later book Antifragile, Taleb explains how systems and people can survive the inevitable black swans of life and, like the immune system, grow stronger in response. Taleb asks us to distinguish three kinds of things. Some, like china teacups, are fragile: they break easily and cannot heal themselves, so you must handle them gently and keep them away from toddlers. Other things are resilient: they can withstand shocks. Parents usually give their toddlers plastic cups precisely because plastic can survive repeated falls to the floor, although the cups do not benefit from such falls. But Taleb asks us to look beyond the overused word “resilience” and recognize that some things are antifragile. Many of the important systems in our economic and political life are like our immune systems: they require stressors and challenges in order to learn, adapt, and grow. Systems that are antifragile become rigid, weak, and inefficient when nothing challenges them or pushes them to respond vigorously. He notes that muscles, bones, and children are antifragile: Just as spending a month in bed, leads to muscle atrophy, complex systems are weakened, even killed, when deprived of stressors. Much of our modern, structured, world has been harming us with top-down policies and contraptions, which do precisely this: an insult to the antifragility of systems. This is the tragedy of modernity: as with neurotically overprotective parents, those trying to help are often hurting us the most. Taleb opens the book with a poetic image that should speak to all parents. He notes that wind extinguishes a candle but energizes a fire. He advises us not to be like candles and not to turn our children into candles: “You want to be the fire and wish for the wind.” The foolishness of overprotection is apparent as soon as you understand the concept of antifragility. Given that risks and stressors are natural, unavoidable parts of life, parents and teachers should be helping kids develop their innate abilities to grow and learn from such experiences. There’s an old saying: “Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child.” But these days, we seem to be doing precisely the opposite: we’re trying to clear away anything that might upset children, not realizing that in doing so, we’re repeating the peanut-allergy mistake. If we protect children from various classes of potentially upsetting experiences, we make it far more likely that those children will be unable to cope with such events when they leave our protective umbrella. The modern obsession with protecting young people from “feeling unsafe” is, we believe, one of the (several) causes of the rapid rise in rates of adolescent depression, anxiety, and suicide, which we’ll explore in chapter 7. The Rise of Safetyism In the twentieth century, the word “safety” generally meant physical safety. A great triumph of the late part of that century was that the United States became physically safer for children. As a result of class action lawsuits, efforts by investigative journalists and consumer advocates, such as Ralph Nader and his expose of the auto industry, Unsafe at Any Speed, and common sense, dangerous products and practices became less prevalent. Between 1978 and 1985, all fifty states passed laws making the use of car seats mandatory for children. Homes and day care centers were childproofed, choking hazards and sharp objects were removed. As a result, death rates for children have plummeted. This is, of course, a very good thing, although in some other ways, the focus on physical safety may have gone too far. The Alison Gopnik essay quoted above was titled “Should We Let Toddlers Play With Saws and Knives?” Her answer was: maybe. But gradually, in the twenty-first century, on some college campuses, the meaning of “safety” underwent a process of “concept creep” and expanded to include “emotional safety.” As an example, in 2014, Oberlin College posted guidelines for faculty, urging them to use trigger warnings to “show students that you care about their safety.” The rest of the memo makes it clear that what the college was really telling its faculty was: show students that you care about their feelings. You can see the conflation of safety and feelings in another part of the memo, which urged faculty to use each student’s preferred gender pronoun (for example, “zhe” or “they” for students who don’t want to be referred to as “he” or “she”), not because this was respectful or appropriately sensitive but because a professor who uses an incorrect pronoun “prevents or impairs their safety in a classroom.” If students have been told that they can request gender neutral pronouns and then a professor fails to use one, students may be disappointed or upset. But are these students unsafe? Are students in any danger in the classroom if a professor uses the wrong pronoun? Professors should indeed be mindful of their students’ feelings, but how might it change Oberlin students, and the nature of class discussions, when the community is told repeatedly that they should judge the speech of others in terms of safety and danger? To understand how an Oberlin administrator could have used the word “safety,” we turn to an article published in 2016 by the Australian psychologist Nick Haslam, titled “Concept Creep: Psychology’s Expanding Concepts of Harm and Pathology.” Haslam examined a variety of key concepts in clinical and social psychology, including abuse, bullying, trauma, and prejudice, to determine how their usage had changed since the nineteen eighties. He found that their scope had expanded in two directions: the concepts had crept “downward,” to apply to less severe situations, and “outward,” to encompass new but conceptually related phenomena. Take the word “trauma.” In the early versions of the primary manual of psychiatry, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), 17 psychiatrists used the word “trauma” only to describe a physical agent causing physical damage, as in the case of what we now call traumatic brain injury. In the 1980 revision, however, the manual, DSM three recognized “post-traumatic stress disorder” as a mental disorder, the first type of traumatic injury that isn’t physical. PTSD is caused by an extraordinary and terrifying experience, and the criteria for a traumatic event that warrants a diagnosis of PTSD were (and are) strict: to qualify, an event would have to “evoke significant symptoms of distress in almost everyone” and be “outside the range of usual human experience.” The DSM III emphasized that the event was not based on a subjective standard. It had to be something that would cause most people to have a severe reaction. War, rape, and torture were included in this category. Divorce and simple bereavement (as in the death of a spouse due to natural causes), on the other hand, were not, because they are normal parts of life, even if unexpected. These experiences are sad and painful, but pain is not the same thing as trauma. People in these situations that don’t fall into the “trauma” category might benefit from counseling, but they generally recover from such losses without any therapeutic interventions. In fact, even most people who do have traumatic experiences recover completely without intervention. By the early two thousands, however, the concept of “trauma” within parts of the therapeutic community had crept down so far that it included anything “experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful, with lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.” The subjective experience of “harm” became definitional in assessing trauma. As a result, the word “trauma” became much more widely used, not just by mental health professionals but by their clients and patients, including an increasing number of college students. As with trauma, a key change for most of the concepts Haslam examined was the shift to a subjective standard. It was not for anyone else to decide what counted as trauma, bullying, or abuse, if it felt like that to you, trust your feelings. If a person reported that an event was traumatic (or bullying or abusive), his or her subjective assessment was increasingly taken as sufficient evidence. And if a rapidly growing number of students have been diagnosed with a mental disorder (as we’ll see in chapter 7), then there is a rapidly growing need for the campus community to protect them. Safe Spaces. Few Americans had ever heard of a “safe space” in an academic sense until March of 2015, when The New York Times published an essay by Judith Shulevitz about a safe space created by students at Brown University. The students were preparing for an upcoming debate between two feminist authors, Wendy McElroy and Jessica Valenti, on “rape culture,” the concept that “prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse.” Proponents of the idea, like Valenti, argue that misogyny is endemic to American culture, and in such a world, sexual assault is considered a lesser crime. We can all see, especially in the MeToo era, that sexual abuse is far too common. But does that make for a rape culture? It seems an idea worthy of debate. McElroy disputes the claim that America is a rape culture, and to illustrate her argument, she contrasts the United States with countries in which rape is endemic and tolerated. For example, in parts of Afghanistan, “women are married against their will, they are murdered for men’s honor, they are raped. And when they are raped they are arrested for it, and they are shunned by their family afterward,” she says. “Now that’s a rape culture.” McElroy has firsthand experience of sexual violence: she told the audience at Brown that she was brutally raped as a teenager, and as an adult she was so badly beaten by a boyfriend that it left her blind in one eye. She believes it is untrue and unhelpful to tell American women that they live in a rape culture. But what if some Brown students believe that America is a rape culture? Should McElroy be allowed to challenge their belief, or would that challenge put them in danger? A Brown student explained to Shulevitz: “Bringing in a speaker like that could serve to invalidate people’s experiences.” It could be “damaging,” she said. The logic seems to be that some Brown students believe that America is a rape culture, and for some of them, this belief is based in part on their own lived experience of sexual assault. If, during the debate, McElroy were to tell them that America is not a rape culture, she could be taken to be saying that their personal experiences are “invalid” as grounds for the assertion that America is a rape culture. That could be painful to hear, but should college students interpret emotional pain as a sign that they are in danger? Illustrating concept creep and the expansion of “safety” to include emotional comfort, the student quoted above, along with other Brown students, attempted to get McElroy disinvited from the debate in order to protect her peers from such “damage.” That effort failed, but in response, the president of Brown, Christina Paxson, announced that she disagreed with McElroy, and that during the debate, the college would hold a competing talk about rape culture, without debate, so students could hear about how America is a rape culture without being confronted by different views. The competing talk didn’t entirely solve the problem, however. Any student who chose to attend the main debate could still be “triggered” by the presence of McElroy on campus and (on the assumption that students are fragile rather than antifragile) retraumatized. So the student quoted above worked with other Brown students to create a “safe space” where anyone who felt triggered could recuperate and get help. The room was equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets, and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members purportedly trained to deal with trauma. But the threat wasn’t just the reactivation of painful personal memories, it was also the threat to students’ beliefs. One student who sought out the safe space put it this way: “I was feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs.” The general reaction to Shulevitz’s article was incredulity. Many Americans (and surely many Brown students) could not understand why college students needed to keep themselves “safe” from ideas. Couldn’t they do that by simply not going to the talk? But if you understand the fragile-student model, the belief that many college students are fragile in Taleb’s sense of the word, then it makes sense that all members of a community should work together to protect those students from reminders of past trauma. All members of the Brown community should come together to demand that the president (or somebody) prevent the threatening speaker from setting foot on campus. If you see yourself or your fellow students as candles, you’ll want to make your campus a wind-free zone. If the president won’t protect the students, then the students must come together to care for one another, which seems to have been the positive motivation for creating the safe space. But young adults are not flickering candle flames. They are antifragile, and that is true even of victims of violence and those who suffer from PTSD. Research on “posttraumatic growth” shows that most people report becoming stronger, or better in some way, after suffering through a traumatic experience. That doesn’t mean we should stop protecting young people from potential trauma, but it does mean that the culture of safetyism is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature and of the dynamics of trauma and recovery. It is vital that people who have survived violence become habituated to ordinary cues and reminders woven into the fabric of daily life. Avoiding triggers is a symptom of PTSD, not a treatment for it. According to Richard McNally, the director of clinical training in Harvard’s Department of Psychology: Trigger warnings are counter-therapeutic because they encourage avoidance of reminders of trauma, and avoidance maintains PTSD. Severe emotional reactions triggered by course material are a signal that students need to prioritize their mental health and obtain evidence-based, cognitive behavioral therapies that will help them overcome PTSD. These therapies involve gradual, systematic exposure to traumatic memories until their capacity to trigger distress diminishes. Cognitive behavioral therapists treat trauma patients by exposing them to the things they find upsetting (at first in small ways, such as imagining them or looking at pictures), activating their fear, and helping them habituate (grow accustomed) to the stimuli. In fact, the reactivation of anxiety is so important to recovery that some therapists advise their patients to avoid using antianxiety medication while undertaking exposure therapy. For a student who truly suffers from PTSD, appropriate treatment is necessary. But well-meaning friends and professors who work together to hide potential reminders of painful experiences, or who repeatedly warn the student about the possible reminders he or she might encounter, could be impeding the person’s recovery. A culture that allows the concept of “safety” to creep so far that it equates emotional discomfort with physical danger is a culture that encourages people to systematically protect one another from the very experiences embedded in daily life that they need in order to become strong and healthy. This is what we mean when we talk about safetyism. Safety is good, of course, and keeping others safe from harm is virtuous, but virtues can become vices when carried to extremes. “Safetyism” refers to a culture or belief system in which safety has become a sacred value, which means that people become unwilling to make tradeoffs demanded by other practical and moral concerns. “Safety” trumps everything else, no matter how unlikely or trivial the potential danger. When children are raised in a culture of safetyism, which teaches them to stay “emotionally safe” while protecting them from every imaginable danger, it may set up a feedback loop: kids become more fragile and less resilient, which signals to adults that they need more protection, which then makes them even more fragile and less resilient. The end result may be similar to what happened when we tried to keep kids safe from exposure to peanuts: a widespread backfiring effect in which the “cure” turns out to be a primary cause of the disease. iGen and Safetyism. The preoccupation with safetyism is clearest in the generation that began to enter college around 2013. For many years, sociologists and marketers assumed that the “Millennial generation” encompassed everyone born between (roughly) 1982 and 1998 or 2000. But Jean Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University and an authority on intergenerational differences, has found a surprisingly sharp discontinuity that begins around birthyear 1995. She calls those born in and after 1995 “iGen,” short for “internet Generation.” Others use the term “Generation Z.” Twenge shows that iGen suffers from far higher rates of anxiety and depression than did Millennials at the same age, and higher rates of suicide. Something is going on, something has changed the childhood experience of kids born in the late nineteen nineties. Twenge focuses on the rapid growth of social media in the years after the iPhone was introduced, in 2007. By 2011 or so, most teens could check in on their social media status every few minutes, and many did. We’ll explore Twenge’s data and arguments in chapter 7. For now, we simply note two things. First, members of iGen are “obsessed with safety,” as Twenge puts it, and define safety as including “emotional safety.” Their focus on “emotional safety” leads many of them to believe that, as Twenge describes, “one should be safe not just from car accidents and sexual assault but from people who disagree with you.” The second point we want to note about iGen is that the campus trends that led us to write our original Atlantic article, particularly the requests for safe spaces and trigger warnings, started to spread only when iGen began arriving on campus, around 2013. The demands for safety and censorship accelerated rapidly over the next four years as the last of the Millennials graduated, to be replaced by iGen. This is not a book about Millennials, indeed, Millennials are getting a bad rap these days, as many people erroneously attribute recent campus trends to them. This is a book about the very different attitudes toward speech and safety that spread across universities as the Millennials were leaving. We are not blaming iGen. Rather, we are proposing that today’s college students were raised by parents and teachers who had children’s best interests at heart but who often did not give them the freedom to develop their antifragility. In Summary. Children, like many other complex adaptive systems, are antifragile. Their brains require a wide range of inputs from their environments in order to configure themselves for those environments. Like the immune system, children must be exposed to challenges and stressors (within limits, and in age-appropriate ways), or they will fail to mature into strong and capable adults, able to engage productively with people and ideas that challenge their beliefs and moral convictions. Concepts sometimes creep. Concepts like trauma and safety have expanded so far since the nineteen eighties that they are often employed in ways that are no longer grounded in legitimate psychological research. Grossly expanded conceptions of trauma and safety are now used to justify the overprotection of children of all ages, even college students, who are sometimes said to need safe spaces and trigger warnings lest words and ideas put them in danger. Safetyism is the cult of safety, an obsession with eliminating threats (both real and imagined) to the point at which people become unwilling to make reasonable trade-offs demanded by other practical and moral concerns. Safetyism deprives young people of the experiences that their antifragile minds need, thereby making them more fragile, anxious, and prone to seeing themselves as victims. CHAPTER Two. The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always Trust Your Feelings. What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance. EPICTETUS. Imagine that you are a sophomore in college. It’s midwinter, and you’ve been feeling blue and anxious. You attach no stigma to seeing a psychotherapist, so you take advantage of the campus counseling services to see if talking through your issues will help. You sit down with your new therapist and tell him how you’ve been feeling lately. He responds, “Oh, wow. People feel very anxious when they’re in great danger. Do you feel very anxious sometimes?” This realization that experiencing anxiety means you are in great danger is making you very anxious right now. You say yes. The therapist answers, “Oh, no! Then you must be in very great danger.” You sit in silence for a moment, confused. In your past experience, therapists have helped you question your fears, not amplify them. The therapist adds, “Have you experienced anything really nasty or difficult in your life? Because I should also warn you that experiencing trauma makes you kind of broken, and you may be that way for the rest of your life.” He briefly looks up from his notepad. “Now, since we know you are in grave danger, let’s discuss how you can hide.” As your anxiety mounts, you realize that you have made a terrible mistake coming to see this therapist. “Always trust your feelings,” said Misoponos, and that dictum may sound wise and familiar. You’ve heard versions of it from a variety of sappy novels and pop psychology gurus. But the second Great Untruth, the Untruth of Emotional Reasoning, is a direct contradiction of much ancient wisdom. We opened this chapter with a quotation from the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus, but we could just as easily have quoted Buddha, “Our life is the creation of our mind”, or Shakespeare (“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”) or Milton (“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven”). Or we could have told you the story of Boethius, awaiting execution in the year 524. Boethius reached the pinnacle of success in the late Roman world, he had been a senator and scholar who held many high offices, but he crossed the Ostrogoth king, Theodoric. In The Consolation of Philosophy, written in his jail cell, he describes his (imaginary) encounter with “Lady Philosophy,” who visits him one night and conducts what is essentially a session of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). She chides him gently for his moping, fearfulness, and bitterness at his reversal of fortune, and then she helps him to reframe his thinking and shut off his negative emotions. She helps him see that fortune is fickle and he should be grateful that he enjoyed it for so long. She guides him to reflect on the fact that his wife, children, and father are all still alive and well, and each one is dearer to him than his own life. Each exercise helps him see his situation in a new light, each one weakens the grip of his emotions and prepares him to accept Lady Philosophy’s ultimate lesson: “Nothing is miserable unless you think it so, and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.” Sages in many societies have converged on the insight that feelings are always compelling, but not always reliable. Often they distort reality, deprive us of insight, and needlessly damage our relationships. Happiness, maturity, and even enlightenment require rejecting the Untruth of Emotional Reasoning and learning instead to question our feelings. The feelings themselves are real, and sometimes they alert us to truths that our conscious mind has not noticed, but sometimes they lead us astray. In The Happiness Hypothesis, Jon drew on Buddha and other sages to offer the metaphor that the mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict, like a small rider sitting on top of a large elephant. The rider represents conscious or “controlled” processes, the language-based thinking that fills our conscious minds and that we can control to some degree. The elephant represents everything else that goes on in our minds, the vast majority of which is outside of our conscious awareness. These processes can be called intuitive, unconscious, or “automatic,” referring to the fact that nearly all of what goes on in our minds is outside of our direct control, although the results of automatic processes sometimes make their way into consciousness. The rider-and-elephant metaphor captures the fact that the rider often believes he is in control, yet the elephant is vastly stronger, and tends to win any conflict that arises between the two. Jon reviewed psychological research to show that the rider generally functions more like the elephant’s servant than its master, in that the rider is extremely skilled at producing post-hoc justifications for whatever the elephant does or believes. Emotional reasoning is the cognitive distortion that occurs whenever the rider interprets what is happening in ways that are consistent with the elephant’s reactive emotional state, without investigating what is true. The rider then acts like a lawyer or press secretary whose job is to rationalize and justify the elephant’s pre-ordained conclusions, rather than to inquire into, or even be curious about, what is really true. Typically, the rider does his job without objection, but the rider has some ability to talk back to the elephant, particularly if he can learn to speak the elephant’s language, which is a language of intuition rather than logic. If the rider can reframe a situation so that the elephant sees it in a new way, then the elephant will feel new feelings, too, which will then motivate the elephant to move in a new direction. Boethius illustrated this “talking back” process by creating “Lady Philosophy” and having her ask the sorts of questions one learns to ask oneself in CBT. As he answers her questions, Boethius sees his life in new ways. He feels flashes of love for his family, and gratitude that they are safe. He changes the ways in which he interprets things, which causes his emotions to change, which then causes his thinking to change even further. If you engage in this “talking back” process on a regular basis, it becomes easier and easier to do. Over time, the rider becomes a more skillful trainer, and the elephant becomes better trained. The two work together in harmony. That is the power and promise of CBT. What Is CBT? Cognitive behavioral therapy was developed in the nineteen sixties by Aaron Beck, a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania. At the time, Freudian ideas dominated psychiatry. Clinicians assumed that depression and the distorted thinking it produces were just the surface manifestation of deeper problems, usually stretching back to unresolved childhood conflict. To treat depression, you had to fix the underlying problem, and that could take many years of therapy. But Beck saw a close connection between the thoughts a person had and the feelings that came with them. He noticed that his patients tended to get themselves caught in a feedback loop in which irrational negative beliefs caused powerful negative feelings, which in turn seemed to drive patients’ reasoning, motivating them to find evidence to support their negative beliefs. Beck noticed a common pattern of beliefs, which he called the “cognitive triad” of depression: “I’m no good,” “My world is bleak,” and “My future is hopeless.” Many people experience one or two of these thoughts fleetingly, but depressed people tend to hold all three beliefs in a stable and enduring psychological structure. Psychologists call such structures schemas. Schemas refer to the patterns of thoughts and behaviors, built up over time, that people use to process information quickly and effortlessly as they interact with the world. Schemas are deep down in the elephant, they are one of the ways in which the elephant guides the rider. Depressed people have schemas about themselves and their paths through life that are thoroughly disempowering. Beck’s great discovery was that it is possible to break the disempowering feedback cycle between negative beliefs and negative emotions. If you can get people to examine these beliefs and consider counterevidence, it gives them at least some moments of relief from negative emotions, and if you release them from negative emotions, they become more open to questioning their negative beliefs. It takes some skill to do this, depressed people are very good at finding evidence for the beliefs in the triad. And it takes time, a disempowering schema can’t be disassembled in a single moment of great insight (which is why insights gained from moments of enlightenment often fade quickly). But it is possible to train people to learn Beck’s method so they can question their automatic thoughts on their own, every day. With repetition, over a period of weeks or months, people can change their schemas and create different, more helpful habitual beliefs (such as “I can handle most challenges” or “I have friends I can trust”). With CBT, there is no need to spend years talking about one’s childhood. The evidence that CBT works is overwhelming. A common finding is that CBT works about as well as Prozac and similar drugs for relieving the symptoms of anxiety disorders and mild to moderate depression, and it does so with longer-lasting benefits and without any negative side effects. But CBT is effective for more than anxiety and depression, including anorexia, bulimia, obsessive compulsive disorder, anger, marital discord, and stress related disorders. CBT is easy to do, has been widely used, has been demonstrated to be effective, and is the best-studied form of psychotherapy. It is therefore the therapy with the strongest evidence that it is both safe and effective. The list below shows nine of the most common cognitive distortions that people learn to recognize in CBT. It is these distorted thought patterns that Greg began to notice on campus, which led him to invite Jon out to lunch, which led us to write our Atlantic article and, eventually, this book. Different CBT experts and practitioners use different lists of cognitive distortions. The nine in our list are based on a longer list in Robert Leahy, Stephen Holland, and Lata McGinn’s book, Treatment Plans and Interventions for Depression and Anxiety Disorders. For more on CBT, how it works, and how to practice it, please see Appendix 1. EMOTIONAL REASONING: Letting your feelings guide your interpretation of reality. “I feel depressed, therefore, my marriage is not working out.” CATASTROPHIZING: Focusing on the worst possible outcome and seeing it as most likely. “It would be terrible if I failed.” OVERGENERALIZING: Perceiving a global pattern of negatives on the basis of a single incident. “This generally happens to me. I seem to fail at a lot of things.” DICHOTOMOUS THINKING (also known variously as “black-andwhite thinking,” “all-or-nothing thinking,” and “binary thinking”): Viewing events or people in all-or-nothing terms. “I get rejected by everyone,” or “It was a complete waste of time.” MIND READING: Assuming that you know what people think without having sufficient evidence of their thoughts. “He thinks I’m a loser.” LABELING: Assigning global negative traits to yourself or others, often in the service of dichotomous thinking. “I’m undesirable,” or “He’s a rotten person.” NEGATIVE FILTERING: You focus almost exclusively on the negatives and seldom notice the positives. “Look at all of the people who don’t like me.” DISCOUNTING POSITIVES: Claiming that the positive things you or others do are trivial, so that you can maintain a negative judgment. “That’s what wives are supposed to do, so it doesn’t count when she’s nice to me,” or “Those successes were easy, so they don’t matter.” BLAMING: Focusing on the other person as the source of your negative feelings, you refuse to take responsibility for changing yourself. “She’s to blame for the way I feel now,” or “My parents caused all my problems.” As you read through that list of distortions, it’s easy to see how somebody who habitually thinks in such ways would develop schemas that revolve around maladaptive core beliefs, which interfere with realistic and adaptive interpretations of social situations. Everyone engages in these distortions from time to time, so CBT is useful for everyone. Wouldn’t our relationships be better if we all did a little less blaming and dichotomous thinking, and recognized that we usually share responsibility for conflicts? Wouldn’t our political debates be more productive if we all did less overgeneralizing and labeling, both of which make it harder to compromise? We are not suggesting that everybody needs to find a therapist and start treatment with CBT. Greg’s original realization about cognitive distortions was that just learning how to recognize them and rein them in is a good intellectual habit for all of us to cultivate. Learning about cognitive distortions is especially important on a college campus. Imagine being in a seminar class in which several of the students habitually engage in emotional reasoning, overgeneralization, dichotomous thinking, and simplistic labeling. The task of the professor in this situation is to gently correct such distortions, all of which interfere with learning, both for the students engaging in the distortions and for the other students in the class. For example, if a student is offended by a passage in a novel and makes a sweeping generalization about the bad motives of authors who share the demographic characteristics of the offending author, other students might disagree but be reluctant to say so publicly. In such a case, the professor could ask a series of questions encouraging the student to ground assertions in textual evidence and consider alternative interpretations. Over time, a good college education should improve the critical thinking skills of all students. There is no universally accepted definition of “critical thinking,” but most treatments of the concept include a commitment to connect one’s claims to reliable evidence in a proper way, which is the basis of scholarship and is also the essence of CBT. Critical thinking is also needed to recognize and defeat “fake news.” It is not acceptable for a scholar to say, “You have shown me convincing evidence that my claim is wrong, but I still feel that my claim is right, so I’m sticking with it.” When scholars cannot rebut or reconcile disconfirming evidence, they must drop their claims or else lose the respect of their colleagues. As scholars challenge one another within a community that shares norms of evidence and argumentation and that holds one another accountable for good reasoning, claims get refined, theories gain nuance, and our understanding of truth advances. But what would happen if some professors encouraged students to use the distortions in our list above? Microaggressions: The Triumph of Impact Over Intent. A prime example of how some professors (and some administrators) encourage mental habits similar to the cognitive distortions is their promotion of the concept of “micro aggressions,” popularized in a 2007 article by Derald Wing Sue, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College. Sue and several colleagues defined micro aggressions as “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color.” The term was first applied to people of color but is now applied much more broadly. Many people from historically marginalized groups continue to face frequent acts of bias and prejudice. Sometimes people make thinly veiled bigoted remarks, and in cases where the speaker is expressing hostility or contempt, it seems appropriate to call it aggression. If the aggressive act is minor or subtle, then the term “micro aggression” seems well suited for the situation. But aggression is not unintentional or accidental. If you bump into someone by accident and never meant them any harm, it is not an act of aggression, although the other person may misperceive it as one. Unfortunately, when Sue included “unintentional” slights, and when he defined the slights entirely in terms of the listener’s interpretation, he encouraged people to make such misperceptions. He encouraged them to engage in emotional reasoning, to start with their feelings and then justify those feelings by drawing the conclusion that someone has committed an act of aggression against them. Those feelings do sometimes point to a correct inference, and it is important to find out whether an acquaintance feels hostility or contempt toward you. But it is not a good idea to start by assuming the worst about people and reading their actions as uncharitably as possible. This is the distortion known as mind reading, if done habitually and negatively, it is likely to lead to despair, anxiety, and a network of damaged relationships. Sue’s original essay included a number of examples of micro aggressions, some of which imply that a person holds negative stereotypes toward various groups, for example, a white woman clutching her purse when a black person passes by, a taxi driver passing by a person of color to pick up a white passenger, a white person praising a black person for being “articulate.” A person who has experienced these things repeatedly might be justified in suspecting that bigotry or negative stereotypes motivated the behaviors. However, many of the examples offered by Sue do not necessarily suggest that the speaker feels hostility or holds negative stereotypes toward any group. His list of micro aggressions includes a white person asking an Asian American to teach her words in the Asian American’s “native language,” a white person saying that “America is a melting pot,” and a white person saying, “I believe the most qualified person should get the job.” These all hinge on the fact that listeners could choose to interpret the statement or question in a way that makes them feel insulted or marginalized. Sue explains that an Asian American could take the language question as an assertion that “you are a foreigner”, a Latino student could take the “melting pot” comment as an injunction to “assimilate, acculturate to the dominant culture”, a black student could interpret the “most qualified person” comment as an implicit statement that “people of color are given extra unfair advantages because of their race.” Yes, one certainly could interpret these everyday questions and comments in this way, as tiny acts of aggression, rebuke, or exclusion, and sometimes that is exactly what they are. But there are other ways to interpret these statements, too. More to the point, should we teach students to interpret these kinds of things as acts of aggression? If a student feels a flash of offense as the recipient of such statements, is he better off embracing that feeling and labeling himself a victim of a micro aggression, or is he better off asking himself if a more charitable interpretation might be warranted by the facts? A charitable interpretation does not mean that the recipient of the comment must do nothing, rather, it opens up a range of constructive responses. A charitable approach might be to say, “I’m guessing you didn’t mean any harm when you said that, but you should know that some people might interpret that to mean.” This approach would make it easier for students to respond when they feel hurt, it would transform a victimization story into a story about one’s own agency, and it would make it far more likely that the interpersonal exchange would have a positive outcome. We all can be more thoughtful about our own speech, but it is unjust to treat people as if they are bigots when they harbor no ill will. Doing so can discourage them from being receptive to valuable feedback. It may also make them less interested in engaging with people across lines of difference. By Sue’s logic, however, CBT itself can be a micro aggression, because it requires questioning the premises and assumptions that give rise to feelings. Sue gives the example of a therapist asking a client, “Do you really think your problem stems from racism?” Depending on the therapist’s intention, such a question could indeed be improperly dismissive. But if the intention of the therapist is to help the client talk back to his emotions, search for evidence to justify interpretations, and find the realistic appraisal of events that will lead to the most effective functioning in a world full of ambiguities, then the question may very well be appropriate and constructive. Teaching people to see more aggression in ambiguous interactions, take more offense, feel more negative emotions, and avoid questioning their initial interpretations strikes us as unwise, to say the least. It is also contrary to the usual goals of good psychotherapy. Shadi Hamid, a scholar at The Brookings Institution, describes his approach to dealing with potential micro aggressions in an article in The Atlantic: “As an Arab and a Muslim, I get the questions ‘Where are you from?’, by which people usually mean ‘Where are you really from?’, and ‘Were you born here?’ quite often. It doesn’t usually occur to me to get offended.” As Hamid notes, “In our identitarian age, the bar for offense has been lowered considerably, which makes democratic debate more difficult, citizens are more likely to withhold their true opinions if they fear being labeled as bigoted or insensitive.” Hamid’s point has important implications for the challenge of building a community on a college campus, where we want students to freely engage with one another rather than keeping their thoughts hidden. Imagine that you are in charge of new-student orientation at an American university that is very diverse, there are students from a wide variety of racial groups, ethnic groups, religions, and socioeconomic backgrounds. There are international students from Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America, some of whom don’t speak English well, many don’t understand the nuances of English words and American customs, and as a result, they often choose the wrong word to express themselves. There are also students on the autism spectrum who have difficulty picking up on subtle social cues. With all this diversity, there will be hundreds of misunderstandings on your campus each day. The potential for offense-taking is almost unlimited. How should you prepare these students to engage with one another in the most productive and beneficial way? Would you give them a day of micro aggression training and encourage them to report micro aggressions whenever they see them? To go along with that training, would you set up a Bias Response Team, a group of administrators charged with investigating reports of bias, including micro aggressions? Or would you rather give all students advice on how to be polite and avoid giving accidental or thoughtless offense in a diverse community, along with a day of training in giving one another the benefit of the doubt and interpreting everyone’s actions in ways that elicit the least amount of emotional reactivity? More generally, the microaggression concept reveals a crucial moral change on campus: the shift from “intent” to “impact.” In moral judgment as it has long been studied by psychologists, intent is essential for assessing guilt. We generally hold people morally responsible for acts that they intended to commit. If Bob tries to poison Maria and he fails, he has committed a very serious crime, even though he has made no impact on Maria. (Bob is still guilty of attempted murder.) Conversely, if Maria accidentally kills Bob by (consensually) kissing him after eating a peanut butter sandwich, she has committed no offense if she had no idea he was deathly allergic to peanuts. Most people understand concepts related to racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry in this way, they focus on intent. If, on the basis of group membership, you dislike people, wish them ill, or intend to do them harm, you are a bigot, even if you say or do something that inadvertently or unintentionally helps members of that group. Conversely, if you accidentally say or do something that a member of a group finds offensive, but harbor no dislike or ill will on the basis of group membership, then you are not a bigot, even if you have said something clumsy or insensitive for which an apology is appropriate. A faux pas does not make someone an evil person or an aggressor. However, some activists say that bigotry is only about impact (as they define impact), intent is not even necessary. If a member of an identity group feels offended or oppressed by the action of another person, then according to the impact-versus-intent paradigm, that other person is guilty of an act of bigotry. As explained in an essay at EverydayFeminism.com, “In the end, what does the intent of our action really matter if our actions have the impact of furthering the marginalization or oppression of those around us?” It is undeniable that some members of various identity groups encounter repeated indignities because of their group membership. Even if none of the offenders harbored a trace of ill will, their clueless or ignorant questions could become burdensome and hard to tolerate. Comedian and diversity educator Karith Foster, a black woman who is married to a white man, had a particularly difficult experience when her husband was taken to the emergency room after a nearly fatal motorcycle accident. As hospital personnel asked him about his medical history, he slipped in and out of consciousness. Foster began to answer for him, but nobody seemed to be listening to her. “For the first time in my life I felt invisible,” she said. She told us that a doctor glanced at her indifferently and finally asked, in a detached tone of voice, what her relationship was to the patient. Then, as they treated her husband, more members of the all-white staff asked her that same question with a similar intonation, until finally Foster was on the brink of tears. “It wasn’t the question,” she told us. “I understand that by law and hospital protocol it needed to be asked. What was so disconcerting was the tone I perceived.” She remembers clearly thinking, “Am I seriously having to deal with this racist bullshit RIGHT NOW? As my husband’s life is on the line?!” She described what happened next: I wanted so badly to lose it and scream at the hospital staff: “We’re living in the twenty-first century! It’s called a mixed-race marriage!” But I knew my emotions were getting the best of me in this incredibly stressful moment and were leading me to label the doctors and nurses as racists. I was assuming that I knew what they were thinking. But that’s not the way I normally think when I’m not under so much stress. It took everything I had, but I took a deep breath and practiced the C.A.R.E. model that I teach: I reminded myself that everyone was doing their best to save my husband’s life, that the stress of the situation might be influencing my interpretations, and that I needed to keep the lines of communication open. Doing that must have shifted how I was coming across, because although I don’t remember acting any differently, it seemed like all of a sudden the doctors began showing me X-rays and explaining the procedures they were doing. One of the attendants even went out and bought me a cup of coffee and refused to let me pay for it. That’s when I had the epiphany that what I had experienced wasn’t racism. No one was being malicious because I was black and my spouse was white. But for them to fully comprehend our relationship, they had to change their default ideas of what a married couple looks like. Foster told us that in dealing with hospital personnel’s insensitivity, “without taking a step back, I could have made an awful situation a lot worse.” After the emergency, her husband is doing fine now, Foster made sure to speak with the hospital administration about the insensitivity and lack of awareness she and her husband experienced, and the administrative personnel were receptive and apologetic. It is crucial to teach incoming students to be thoughtful in their interactions with one another. A portion of what is derided as “political correctness” is just an effort to promote polite and respectful interactions by discouraging the use of terms that are reasonably taken to be demeaning. But if you teach students that intention doesn’t matter, and you also encourage students to find more things offensive (leading them to experience more negative impacts), and you also tell them that whoever says or does the things they find offensive are “aggressors” who have committed acts of bigotry against them, then you are probably fostering feelings of victimization, anger, and hopelessness in your students. They will come to see the world, and even their university, as a hostile place where things never seem to get better. If someone wanted to create an environment of perpetual anger and intergroup conflict, this would be an effective way to do it. Teaching students to use the least generous interpretations possible is likely to engender precisely the feelings of marginalization and oppression that almost everyone wants to eliminate. And, to add injury to insult, this sort of environment is likely to foster an external locus of control. The concept of “locus of control” goes back to behaviorist days, when psychologists noted that animals (including people) could be trained to expect that they could get what they wanted through their own behavior, that is, some control over outcomes was “internal” to themselves. Conversely, animals could be trained to expect that nothing they did mattered, that is, all control of outcomes was “external” to themselves. A great deal of research shows that having an internal locus of control leads to greater health, happiness, effort expended, success in school, and success at work. An internal locus of control has even been found to make many kinds of adversity less painful. Disinvitations and the Ideological Vetting of Speakers. Another way that emotional reasoning manifests itself on college campuses is through the “disinvitation” of guest speakers. The logic typically used is that if a speaker makes some students uncomfortable, upset, or angry, then that is enough to justify banning that speaker from campus entirely because of the “danger” that the speaker poses to those students. In a typical case, students pressure the organization that issued the invitation, or petition the college president or relevant deans, demanding that someone rescind the invitation. The threat is made (sometimes implicitly and sometimes explicitly) that if the speaker comes to campus, there will be loud, disruptive protests in an organized effort to stop the talk from taking place. Strategies include blocking entrances to the building, shouting expletives or “Shame! Shame! Shame!” at anyone who tries to attend, banging loudly on doors and windows from outside the room, and filling up the auditorium with protesters, who eventually shout or chant for as long as it takes to prevent the speaker from speaking. As the idea that the mere presence of a speaker on campus can be “dangerous” has spread more widely, efforts to disinvite speakers have become more common. Greg’s organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), has been tracking disinvitation attempts going back to 2000, the FIRE disinvitation database currently contains 379 such events. About 46 percent of the attempts were successful: the speaker was disinvited, or the event was otherwise canceled. Of the events that proceeded, about a third were disrupted by protesters to some degree. For most of the events, the disinvitation effort can be clearly categorized as coming from one side of the political spectrum or the other. As you can see in Figure 2.1, from 2000 through 2009, disinvitation efforts were just as likely to come from the right as from the left. But after 2009, a gap opens up, and then widens beginning in 2013, right around the time that Greg began noticing things changing on campus. Part of this change is because, on some campuses, conservative groups began inviting more provocateurs, especially Milo Yiannopoulos, a master of the art of provoking what he calls “mild rage.” Yiannopoulos describes himself as a “troll” and even named his 2017 speaking tour “Milo’s Troll Academy Tour.” While trolls have, of course, been around for a long time, the dynamic of troll versus protesters became more common in 2016, and we have used asterisks in Figure 2.1 to show where the line for the left would have been had we not included the seventeen Yiannopoulos disinvitations. Many of the speakers who faced disinvitation efforts from the left in 2013 and 2014 were serious thinkers and politicians, including conservative political journalist George Will, and managing director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde. Some of them were even clearly left leaning, such as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, comedian Bill Maher, and former U S Attorney General Eric Holder. Disinvitation Attempts by Year and Source of Criticism. FIGURE 2.1. Disinvitation attempts each year since 2000. Solid line shows efforts initiated by people and groups on the political left, dashed line shows efforts from the right. Asterisks show where the solid line would have been had Milo Yiannopoulos been removed from the dataset. Something began changing on many campuses around 2013, and the idea that college students should not be exposed to “offensive” ideas is now a majority position on campus. In 2017, 58 percent of college students said it is “important to be part of a campus community where I am not exposed to intolerant and offensive ideas.” This statement was endorsed by 63 percent of very liberal students, but it’s a view that is not confined to the left, almost half of very conservative students (45 percent) endorsed that statement, too. The notion that a university should protect all of its students from ideas that some of them find offensive is a repudiation of the legacy of Socrates, who described himself as the “gadfly” of the Athenian people. He thought it was his job to sting, to disturb, to question, and thereby to provoke his fellow Athenians to think through their current beliefs, and change the ones they could not defend. It was in this spirit that Zachary Wood, a left-leaning African American student at Williams College, in Massachusetts, led the “U

Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html Source of Rahan Comics: Philippe Ropers. https://vk.com/topic-203785966_47424128 Rahan. Episode Ninety-Seven. By Roger Lecureux, drawn by Andre Cheret. The Fantastic Trap. The son of Crao had often been stopped by ravines and precipices. But none was as deep, as wide as this gorge he had been following since dawn. As he took a break, he almost cried out in astonishment. No! It is not possible! Rahan must dream! The ledge on which he sat was in fact the edge of an animal footprint. A giant, disproportionate footprint. Thirty steps further, he discovered a second. These footprints were so deep that he could have stood in them, so large that a clan of hunters could have huddled in them. The son of Crao repressed a shiver. Rahan does not dare imagine the monster that leaves such traces. Page Two. Although intrigued, he rejected the idea of following the tracks and continued his path along the impassable gorge. Another surprise awaited him not far from there. Who could have sacked this village like this? A tempest? A fight between clans? The dislocated, gutted bamboo huts formed nothing more than an inextricable tangle. But in this rubble, Rahan saw no dead, no injured. “Those-who-walk-upright” were therefore able to flee before their village was devastated! But devastated by whom? By what? The son of Crao had no time to ask himself any other questions. A terrible noise came from the forest. He had the impression that the earth was vibrating under his feet. Page Three. And the most terrible creature appeared in the distance! As if springing from a horrible nightmare, it rose up into the eye and its hideous head dangled more than thirty meters above the ground! Rahan has never seen a monster this big! His body must be longer than an arrow's reach! Although the man must have seemed tiny to him, the creature saw him. The Mountain of flesh, scales and horn shook heavily. Ponderously? It was relative, since each step of the monster was equivalent to ten leaps of the fleeing Rahan! Page Four. The son of Crao, driven to the precipice, suddenly turned, and rushed towards the rubble. Rahan's only chance is to escape his sight! He dove under the bamboos, slipping through the tangle. "It” has stopped. “It” no longer sees Rahan! Rahan held his breath avoiding any movement that would have shaken the bamboos and signaled his hiding place. From where he could distinguish between the gaps, the gigantic silhouette of the creature on the prowl. If “It” takes one more step Rahan is lost! No! The day has not come for Rahan to join the territory of shadows! The monster had turned around and was heading back towards the forest. The son of Crao made the mistake of sneaking away early. He was running along the gorge when. Oh! He returns to the attack! In his flight, he had just tripped over a strong vine. A line which, tied to a stump, hung in the precipice! Oh! What is this!? Page Five. Luck is on Rahan’s side! He tested the strength of the vine and leaned down to estimate its length. The vine led to a protrusion in the cliff on which dozens of men, women and children crowded together. A man drew his bow. Stay up there, outsider! This refuge is barely enough for those of our clan! The monster was approaching and the son of Crao no longer had a choice! If you do not accept Rahan, he will cut this vine! You will escape the monster but you will never be able to escape the precipice again! You will die of hunger and cold in your shelter. So? Do you accept Rahan? The son of Crao, of course, never carried out his threat. But his blackmail succeeded. It is very good! You can descend! Page Six. What proof do you have for Rahan that you will not push him into the void? Taharouk can only give you his word as a hunter and leader! He has never betrayed it! These words were uttered out of pride. They were enough for Rahan who let himself slide with such agility that an admiring murmur arose. Rahan thanks his brothers but he will not burden them! Coiling the vine around his torso, he remained suspended above the rocky ledge. Terrora is coming! The horrible head stood out against the sky. The short, clawed paws skimmed the void. Terrora cannot reach us! He will get tired as usual and will not come back until the green leaf season. Page Seven. Taharouk the chief attempted to be reassuring. But the monster persisted, plowing the edge of the cliff. Attention! The vine will give way! Rahan had felt the fibers of the vine relax, as it was cut by the claws of "Terrora." He suddenly fell, hitting Taharouk who lost his balance and teetered on the edge of the abyss. Argh! But the son of Crao’s reflexes were such that he knew how to both tackle the ledge and grab the leader's arm! An instant later. You are sharper than the sharpest of our hunters, “Hair of Fire”! Alas, you are condemned to die with the clan on this rock! Although the monster had abandoned this inaccessible prey, the clan was still in danger. Above, the steep cliff. Below, the dizzying abyss! Page Eight. Usually we take refuge here as soon as "Terrora" approaches. He destroys the village and leaves for the mountains until the next season. And we rebuild the village. This vine has never been broken. Because “Terrora” never got close to the abyss! It was "Fire Hair" that brought him here! The other times, "Terrora" was afraid of the precipice. It was “Hair of Fire” who lured him here! Through his fault, the clan is lost! This man was probably right. The son of Crao felt guilty. Rahan will save the clan! Rahan will kill “Terrora.” If "Terrora" did not bury the stump in the ground. We will all be up there soon! The large loop fluttered toward the edge of the cliff. Page Nine. And that was the miracle! Ra-ha-ha! The lasso, from the first throw, had gripped the stump! Tahorouk and his people, shortly after, found their village devastated. We will rebuild our huts until the next “Green-Leaf-Season.” And “Terrora” will return! Why does the clan not flee this territory? Because it is full of game and water is abundant here, “Hair of Fire”! Without "Terrora," we will live happily! In this case, we must destroy this monster! Rahan does not weigh his words! Our hunters have tried everything! "Terrora" is invulnerable! Even fire does not scare him away! "Terrora" charges when he sees fire! Page Ten. We should set a trap for “Terrora”! Taharouk is beginning to realize that Rahan has lost his mind! What sort of trap? What trap to dig? It would take the clan ten times ten seasons to dig this trap! The son of Crao could not agree that Taharouk was right. But that night he did not sleep. Rahan promised to kill "Terrora", Rahan will keep his promise! A trap. A trap. A trap. Find a trap the size of this monster! A trap from which he would never emerge! Never! As his gaze floated over the immense gorge bathed in the light of the moon, he suddenly screamed. Ra-ha-ha! Rahan knows how to destroy "Terrora"! The precipice will be our trap! It is there, all hollow, ready to devour “Terrora”! Page Eleven. Once again, the clan leader thought that Rahan no longer had his sanity. The only thing Terror is afraid of is this chasm! How would you make it a trap? "Those-who-walk-upright" Can do anything, Taharouk! All they need is courage and self-confidence! Tomorrow we will build a bridge over the gorge! Rahan has already built bridges, he will show you how to do it! At dawn, the son of Crao set to work, firmly assembling the longest bamboos he could find. Despite their skepticism, Taharouk and his people helped him. The hardest part will be placing the first crossing! It was indeed a difficult task. The bamboos were heavy and it was necessary to guide their fall. Attention! Let go of everything! Page Twelve. Once, twice, three times it was a failure. The bamboos, deflected by the wind, were lost in the gorge. Or they would hit the opposite cliff and the rebound would send them back into the precipice! But the fourth attempt was successful. With this "crossing" in place, the construction of the bridge would accelerate. Ra-ha-ha! The bamboos bent as Rahan, girding long vines, crossed to the other side of the gorge. These vines allowed him to pull the other crosspieces over, which would form the deck of the bridge. The clan's skepticism had disappeared and everyone was active. The bamboo grid quickly took shape above the abyss. Page thirteen. And now cover it with branches and grass like for a regular trap. Rahan, he will go and get "terrora"! Rahan will go and get "Terrora"! The son of Crao had spoken these words calmly. His audacity astounded the clan. Finding and following the monster's gigantic tracks was easy. At nightfall, he saw the terrible creature. Fire excites you, "Terrora"! You charge the fire, "Terrora"! That is a good thing for me. Attack "Terrora"! Charge! Charge! As soon as he saw the flames, “Terrora” growled and threw himself forward. And the most hallucinatory chase began. Waving his torches, Rahan lured "Terrora" toward the great gorge. Page Fourteen. As they rushed towards it, the creature froze. Fear of the abyss, no doubt. Fear froze the men of the clan. "Hair of Fire’s" plan was going to fail. He son of Crao was now backing up on the bridge. Charge, “Terrora”, Charge! The monster was watching this bridge. He no longer saw the void. He only saw the fire of the torches. Attack! Attack! And Rahan only had time to leap towards the other side of the gorge. "Terrora" was charging. "Terrora" was coming straight for the trap. As soon as one of its paws landed on the fragile camouflage, the gigantic creature was thrown off balance. And fell into the void! The fantastic animal fell into a trap of its own size. A fantastic trap, too. The hideous head then the body disappeared. The tail whipped the slopes of the gorge. Page Fifteen. And disappeared in his turn. Only then did the cry of victory of the son of Crao thunder! Ra-ha-ha! Which was covered in part by the explosion of joy from the Clan. “Terrora” is no more! You were right "Fire-Hair"! "Those-who-walk-upright" can do anything! The abyss is so deep that one cannot even hear the last gasps of the nightmare creature. Rahan threw his torches into it. Then he lay down on the cliff. He felt tired. But he was happy to hear the songs of those he had delivered from anguish. Tomorrow, they would build a bridge that would no longer be a trap. Rahan would go and join his brothers. Yes, he must have been happy because, even asleep, he seemed to smile at the stars.