the neighbour tribal gods, ever athirst for the red blood of living
human sacrifices, but the neighbour gods themselves were sacrificed
and tormented before him. He was the god of a dozen allied
villages similar to this one, which was the central and commanding
village of the federation. By virtue of the Red One many alien
villages had been devastated and even wiped out, the prisoners
sacrificed to the Red One. This was true to-day, and it extended
back into old history carried down by word of mouth through the
generations. When he, Ngurn, had been a young man, the tribes
beyond the grass lands had made a war raid. In the counter raid,
Ngurn and his fighting folk had made many prisoners. Of children
alone over five score living had been bled white before the Red
One, and many, many more men and women.

The Thunderer was another of Ngurn's names for the mysterious
deity. Also at times was he called The Loud Shouter, The God-
Voiced, The Bird-Throated, The One with the Throat Sweet as the
Throat of the Honey-Bird, The Sun Singer, and The Star-Born.

Why The Star-Born? In vain Bassett interrogated Ngurn. According
to that old devil-devil doctor, the Red One had always been, just
where he was at present, for ever singing and thundering his will
over men. But Ngurn's father, wrapped in decaying grass-matting
and hanging even then over their heads among the smoky rafters of
the devil-devil house, had held otherwise. That departed wise one
had believed that the Red One came from out of the starry night,
else why--so his argument had run--had the old and forgotten ones
passed his name down as the Star-Born? Bassett could not but
recognize something cogent in such argument. But Ngurn affirmed
the long years of his long life, wherein he had gazed upon many