"On a day long ago I laboured with the Army of the Voice. The first syllable of the great word had been uttered, and in far eastern space, beyond seven of the flaming wheels, I and the six sons drew the lives together and held them for the whirlwind which is the one. We were waiting for the second syllable to form the wind.

"As I stood by my place holding the north in quietness, I felt a strong vibration between my hands. Something was interfering with me. I could not let go, but I looked behind me, and there I saw a man standing, and he was weaving spells.

"It was a short, dark man with a little bristle of black whisker on his chin and a stiff bristle of black hair on his head. He was standing inside a double triangle having the points upwards, and there were magical signs at each point of the triangles. While I looked, he threw around him from side to side a flaming circle, and then he threw a flaming circle about him from front to back, and he span these so quickly that he was surrounded by a wall of fire.

"At him, on the instant, I charged a bolt, but it could not penetrate his circles; it hit them and fell harmless, for the circles had a greater speed than my thunderbolt.

"He stood so in the triangles, laughing at me and scratching his chin.

"I dared not loose my hands again lest the labour of a cycle should be dissipated in an instant, and it was no use shouting to the others, for they also were holding the lives in readiness for the whirlwind which would shape them to a globe, so the man had me at his mercy.

"He was working against my grip, and he had amazing power. He had somehow discovered part of the first syllable of the great word, and he was intoning this on me between giggles, but he could not destroy us, for together we were equal to the number of that syllable.

"When I looked at him again he laughed at me, and what he said astonished me greatly.

"'This,' said he, 'is very funny.'

"I made no reply to him, being intent only on holding my grip; but I was reassured, for, although he poured on me incessantly the great sound, its effect was neutralised, for I am a number, and in totality we were the numbers; nevertheless the substance did strain and heave so powerfully that I could do no more than hold it in place.

"The man spoke to me again. Said he:

"'Do you not think that this is very funny?'

"I made no answer for a time, and then I said:

"'Who are you?'

"'A name,' he replied, 'is a power; I won't give you my name although I would like to, for this is a great deed and a funny one.'

"'What is your planet?' quoth I.

"'I won't tell you that,' he replied; 'you might read my signs and come after me later on.'

"I could not but admire the immense impertinence of his deed.

"'I know your sign,' said I, 'for you have already made it three times with your hand, and there is only one planet of these systems which has evolved the fifth race, so I know your planet. Your symbol is the Mule, and Uriel is your Regent; he will be coming after you soon, so you had better go away while you have time.'

"'If he comes,' said the man, 'I'll put him in a bottle, and I'll put you in a bottle too. I won't go for another while, the joke is too good, and this is only the commencement of it.'

"'You will be caught by the second syllable,' I warned him.

"'I'll put it in a bottle,' said he grinning at me. 'No,' he continued, 'I won't be caught, I've made my calculations, and it's not due yet a while.'

"Again he poured on me the great sound until I rocked to and fro like a bush in the wind; but he could not loose my grip, for I was a part of the word.

"'Why are you doing this?' I asked him.

"'I'll tell you that,' he replied.

"'I am two things, and I am great in each of these two things. I am a great magician, and I am a great humourist. Now, it is very easy to prove that one is a magician, for one has only to do things and then people are astonished; they are filled with fear and wonder; they fall down and worship and call one god and master. But it is not so easy to be a humourist, because in that case it is necessary to make people laugh. If a man is to be a magician it is necessary, if his art is to be appreciated, that the people around him be fools. If a person desires to be a humourist it is necessary that the people around him shall be at least as wise as he is, otherwise his humour will not be comprehended. You see my predicament! and it is a cruel one, for I cannot forego either of these ambitions—they are my karma. Laughter is purely an intellectual quality, and in my planet I have no intellectual equals: my jokes can only be enjoyed by myself, and it is of the essence of humour that one share it, or it turns to ill-health and cynicism and mental sourness. My humour cannot be shared with the people of my planet, for they are all half a round beneath me—they can never see the joke, they only see consequences, and these blind them to the rich drollery of any affair, and render me discontented and angry. My humour is too great for them, for it is not terrestrial but cosmic; it can only be appreciated by the gods, therefore, I have come out here to seek my peers and to have at least one hearty laugh with them.'

"'One must laugh,' he continued, 'for laughter is the health of the mind, and I have not laughed for a crore of seasons.'

"Thereupon he took up the syllable and intoned its flooding sound so that the matter beneath my hands strained against me almost unbearably.

"I turned my head and stared at the little man as he laughed happily to himself and scraped his chin.

"'You are a fool,' said I to that man.

"The smile vanished from his face and a shade of dejection took its place.

"'Is it possible, Regent, that you have no sense of humour!' said he.

"'This,' I replied, 'is not humorous; it is only a practical joke; it is no more than incipient humour; there is no joke in it but only mischief, for to interfere with work is the humour of a babe or a monkey. You are a thoroughly serious person, and you will not make a joke in ten eternities; that also is in your karma.'

"At these words his eyes brooded on me darkly, and an expression of real malignancy came on his face: he stamped at me from the triangles and hissed with rage.

"'I'll show you something else,' said he, 'and if it doesn't make you laugh it will make everybody else who hears about it laugh for an age.'

"I saw that he was meditating a personal evil to me, but I was powerless, for I could not let go my grip on the substance.

"He lifted his hands against me then, but, at the moment, there came a sound, so low, so deep, it could scarcely be heard, and with equal strong intensity the sound pervaded all the spaces and brooded in every point and atom with its thrilling breath—we were about to shape to the whirlwind.

"The man's hands fell, and he stared at me.

"'Oh!' said he, and he said 'Oh' three times in a whisper.

"The sound was the beginning of the second syllable.

"'I thought I had time,' he gasped: 'my calculations were wrong.'

"'The joke is against you,' said I to the man.

"'What will I do?' he screamed.

"'Laugh,' I replied, 'laugh at the joke.'

"Already his flying circles had ceased to revolve, and their broad flame was no more than a blue flicker that disappeared even as I looked at them. He stood only in the triangles, and he was open to my vengeance. His staring, haggard eyes fell on the bolt in my hand.

"'There is no need for that,' said he, and he did speak with some small dignity, 'I am caught by the sound, and there is an end to me.'

"And that was true, so I did not loose my bolt.

"Already his triangles were crumbling. He sank on his haunches, clasped his hands about his legs and bowed his head on his knees. I could see that he knew all was lost, and that he was making a last desperate effort to guard his entity from dissolution, and he succeeded, for, one instant before the triangles had disappeared, he had vanished, but he could not have entirely escaped the sound, that was impossible, and if he reached his planet it must have been as a life of the third round instead of the fifth to which he had attained. He had the entire of his evolution to perform over again and had, moreover, added weightily to his karmic disabilities.

"I saw him no more, nor did I hear of him again until the day when Brien O'Brien was thrown from the gates, and then I knew that he and O'Brien were the same being, and that he had really escaped and was a fourth round life of the lowest globe.

"Perhaps he will be heard of again, for he is an energetic and restless being to whom an environment is an enemy and to whom humour is an ambition and a mystery."

"That is the end of my story," said Art modestly.

Mac Cann regarded him indulgently from a cloud of smoke:

"It wasn't as good as the other ones," he remarked, "but that's not your fault, and you're young into the bargain."

"He is not as young as he looks," remarked Finaun.

"A good story has to be about ordinary things," continued Patsy, "but there isn't anybody could tell what your story was about."

Billy the Music here broke in:

"The person I would have liked to hear more of is Cuchulain, for he is my own guardian angel and it's him I'm interested in. The next time I meet him I'll ask him questions."

He glanced around the circle:

"Is there anybody would like to hear a tune on the concertina? I have it by my hand here, and the evening is before us."

"You can play it for us the next time we meet," said Patsy, "for we are all tired listening to the stories, and you are tired yourself."

He lifted to his feet then and yawned heartily with his arms at full stretch and his fists clenched:

"We had better be moving," he continued, "for the evening is coming on and it's twenty miles to the fair."

They harnessed the ass.

"I'm going the opposite way to you," said Billy the Music.

"All right," said Patsy. "God be with you, mister."

"God be with yourselves," replied Billy the Music.

He tramped off then in his own direction, while Mac Cann and his companions took their road with the ass.

BOOK IV

MARY MAC CANN