Time and the Gods | Page 7

dark water, he found the
golden ball. And coming up in the night, all green and dripping, he
carried it gleaming to the stairway of the gods and brought it back to

Inzana from the sea; and out of the hands of Slid she took it and tossed
it far and wide over his sails and sea, and far away it shone on lands
that knew not Slid, till it came to its zenith and dropped towards the
world.
But ere it fell the Eclipse dashed out from his hiding, and rushed at the
golden ball and seized it in his jaws. When Inzana saw the Eclipse
bearing her plaything away she cried aloud to the thunder, who burst
from Pegana and fell howling upon the throat of the Eclipse, who
dropped the golden ball and let it fall towards earth. But the black
mountains disguised themselves with snow, and as the golden ball fell
down towards them they turned their peaks to ruby crimson and their
lakes to sapphires gleaming amongst silver, and Inzana saw a jewelled
casket into which her plaything fell. But when she stooped to pick it up
again she found no jewelled casket with rubies, silver or sapphires, but
only wicked mountains disguised in snow that had trapped her golden
ball. And then she cried because there was none to find it, for the
thunder was far away chasing the Eclipse, and all the gods lamented
when They saw her sorrow. And Limpang Tung, who was least of all
the gods, was yet the saddest at the Dawnchild's grief, and when the
gods said: "Play with your silver moon," he stepped lightly from the
rest, and coming down the stairway of the gods, playing an instrument
of music, went out towards the world to find the golden ball because
Inzana wept.
And into the world he went till he came to the nether cliffs that stand
by the inner mountains in the soul and heart of the earth where the
Earthquake dwelleth alone, asleep but astir as he sleeps, breathing and
moving his legs, and grunting aloud in the dark. Then in the ear of the
Earthquake Limpang Tung said a word that only the gods may say, and
the Earthquake started to his feet and flung the cave away, the cave
wherein he slept between the cliffs, and shook himself and went
galloping abroad and overturned the mountains that hid the golden ball,
and bit the earth beneath them and hurled their crags about and covered
himself with rocks and fallen hills, and went back ravening and
growling into the soul of the earth, and there lay down and slept again
for a hundred years. And the golden ball rolled free, passing under the

shattered earth, and so rolled back to Pegana; and Limpang Tung came
home to the onyx step and took the Dawnchild by the hand and told not
what he had done but said it was the Earthquake, and went away to sit
at the feet of the gods. But Inzana went and patted the Earthquake on
the head, for she said it was dark and lonely in the soul of the earth.
Thereafter, returning step by step, chalcedony, onyx, chalcedony, onyx,
up the stairway of the gods, she cast again her golden ball from the
Threshold afar into the blue to gladden the world and the sky, and
laughed to see it go.
And far away Trogool upon the utter Rim turned a page that was
numbered six in a cipher that none might read. And as the golden ball
went through the sky to gleam on lands and cities, there came the Fog
towards it, stooping as he walked with his dark brown cloak about him,
and behind him slunk the Night. And as the golden ball rolled past the
Fog suddenly Night snarled and sprang upon it and carried it away.
Hastily Inzana gathered the gods and said: "The Night hath seized my
golden ball and no god alone can find it now, for none can say how far
the Night may roam, who prowls all round us and out beyond the
worlds."
At the entreaty of Their Dawnchild all the gods made Themselves stars
for torches, and far away through all the sky followed the tracks of
Night as far as he prowled abroad. And at one time Slid, with the
Pleiades in his hand, came nigh to the golden ball, and at another
Yoharneth-Lahai, holding Orion for a torch, but lastly Limpang Tung,
bearing the morning star, found the golden ball far away under the
world near to the lair of Night.
And all the gods together seized the ball, and Night turning smote out
the torches of the gods and thereafter slunk away; and all the gods