Outside the compound they found, at last, the trail of his passing. They followed and it led to a stream and along the stream until they came to the tabu of the green pool, and could go no farther.
"He went downstream," said Alwa gravely. "He sought the sea and the beach. He was well then, in his mind, for he knew that all streams go to the sea."
"Perhaps he had a ship-of-the-sky there at the beach," Nrana said worriedly. "All Earthlings come from the sky. The Father-of-Us told us that."
"Perhaps he will come back to us," said Alwa. His old eyes misted.
Mr. Smith was coming back all right, and sooner than they had dared to hope. As soon in fact, as he could make the trip to the shack and return. He came back dressed in clothing very different from the garb the other white man had worn. Shining leather boots and the uniform of the Galactic Guard, and a wide leather belt with a holster for his needle gun.
But the gun was in his hand when, at dusk, he strode into the compound.
He said, "I am Number One, the Lord of all the Solar System, and your ruler. Who was chief among you?"
Alwa had been in his hut, but he heard the words and came out. He understood the words, but not their meaning. He said, "Earthling, we welcome you back. I am the chief."
"You were the chief. Now you will serve me. I am the chief."
Alwa's old eyes were bewildered at the strangeness of this. He said, "I will serve you, yes. All of us. But it is not fitting that an Earthling should be chief among—"
The whisper of the needle gun. Alwa's wrinkled hands went to his scrawny neck where, just off the center, was a sudden tiny pin prick of a hole. A faint trickle of red coursed over the dark blue of his skin. The old man's knees gave way under him as the rage of the poisoned needle dart struck him, and he fell. Others started toward him.
"Back," said Mr. Smith. "Let him die slowly that you may all see what happens to—"
But one of the chief's wives, one who did not understand the speech of Earth, was already lifting Alwa's head. The needle gun whispered again, and she fell forward across him.
"I am Number One," said Mr. Smith, "and Lord of all the planets. All who oppose me, die by—"
And then, suddenly all of them were running toward him. His finger pressed the trigger and four of them died before the avalanche of their bodies bore him down and overwhelmed him. Nrana had been first in that rush, and Nrana died.
The others tied the Earthling up and threw him into one of the huts. And then, while the women began wailing for the dead, the men made council.
They elected Kallana chief and he stood before them and said, "The Father-of-Us, the Mister Gerhardt, deceived us." There was fear and worry in his voice and apprehension on his blue face. "If this be indeed the Lord of whom he told us—"
"He is not a god," said another. "He is an Earthling, but there have been such before on Venus, many many of them who came long and long ago from the skies. Now they are all dead, killed in strife among themselves. It is well. This last one is one of them, but he is mad."
And they talked long and the dusk grew into night while they talked of what they must do. The gleam of firelight upon their bodies, and the waiting drummer.
The problem was difficult. To harm one who was mad was tabu. If he was really a god, it would be worse. Thunder and lightning from the sky would destroy the village. Yet they dared not release him. Even if they took the evil weapon-that-whispered-its-death and buried it, he might find other ways to harm them. He might have another where he had gone for the first.
Yes, it was a difficult problem for them, but the eldest and wisest of them, one M'Ganne, gave them at last the answer.
"O Kallana," he said, "Let us give him to the kifs. If they harm him—" and old M'Ganne grinned a toothless, mirthless grin "—it would be their doing and not ours."
Kallana shuddered. "It is the most horrible of all deaths. And if he is a god—"
"If he is a god, they will not harm him. If he is mad and not a god, we will not have harmed him. It harms not a man to tie him to a tree."
Kallana considered well, for the safety of his people was at stake. Considering, he remembered how Alwa and Nrana had died.
He said, "It is right."
The waiting drummer began the rhythm of the council-end, and those of the men who were young and fleet lighted torches in the fire and went out into the forest to seek the kifs, who were still in their season of marching.
And after a while, having found what they sought, they returned.
They took the Earthling out with them, then, and tied him to a tree. They left him there, and they left the gag over his lips because they did not wish to hear his screams when the kifs came.
The cloth of the gag would be eaten, too, but by that time, there would be no flesh under it from which a scream might come.
They left him, and went back to the compound, and the drums took up the rhythm of propitiation to the gods for what they had done. For they had, they knew, cut very close to the corner of a tabu—but the provocation had been great and they hoped they would not be punished.
All night the drums would throb.
The man tied to the tree struggled with his bonds, but they were strong and his writhings made the knots but tighten.
His eyes became accustomed to the darkness.
He tried to shout, "I am Number One, Lord of—"
And then, because he could not shout and because he could not loosen himself, there came a rift in his madness. He remembered who he was, and all the old hatreds and bitterness welled up in him.
He remembered, too, what had happened in the compound, and wondered why the Venusian natives had not killed him. Why, instead, they had tied him here alone in the darkness of the jungle.
Afar, he heard the throbbing of the drums, and they were like the beating of the heart of night, and there was a louder, nearer sound that was the pulse of blood in his ears as the fear came to him.
The fear that he knew why they had tied him here. The horrible, gibbering fear that, for the last time, an army marched against him.
He had time to savor that fear to the uttermost, to have it become a creeping certainty that crawled into the black corners of his soul as would the soldiers of the coming army crawl into his ears and nostrils while others would eat away his eyelids to get at the eyes behind them.
And then, and only then, did he hear the sound that was like the rustle of dry leaves, in a dank, black jungle where there were no dry leaves to rustle nor breeze to rustle them.
Horribly, Number One, the last of the dictators, did not go mad again; not exactly, but he laughed, and laughed and laughed....