ry dusty,
rolling outside a cottage door, and playing with a cat. They were the
Twins.

"What are you doing here?" said Leo, indignant.

"Playing," said the Twins calmly.

"Cannot you play on the banks of the Milky Way?" said Leo.

"We did," said they, "till the Fishes swam down and told us that some
day they would come for us and not hurt us at all and carry us away.
So now we are playing at being babies down here. The people like it."

"Do you like it?" said Leo.

"No," said the Twins, "but there are no cats in the Milky Way," and
they pulled the cat's tail thoughtfully. A woman came out of the
doorway and stood behind them, and Leo saw in her face a look that he
had sometimes seen in the Girl's.

"She thinks that we are foundlings," said the Twins, and they trotted
indoors to the evening meal.

Then Leo hurried as swiftly as possible to all the Houses one after
another; for he could not understand the new trouble that had come to
his brethren. He spoke to the Archer, and the Archer assured him that
so far as that House was concerned Leo had nothing to fear. The
Waterman, the Fishes, and the Goat, gave the same answer. They knew
nothing of Leo, and cared less. They were the Houses, and they were
busied in killing men.

At last he came to that very dark House where Cancer the Crab lies so
still that you might think he was asleep if you did not see the
ceaseless play and winnowing motion of the feathery branches round his
mouth. That movement never ceases. It is like the eating of a
smothered fire into rotten timber in that it is noiseless and without
haste.

Leo stood in front of the Crab, and the half darkness allowed him a
glimpse of that vast blue-black back, and the motionless eyes. Now and
again he thought that he heard some one sobbing, but the noise was
very faint.

"Why do you trouble the children of men?" said Leo. There was no
answer, and against his will Leo cried, "Why do you trouble us? What
have we done that you should trouble us?"

This time Cancer replied, "What do I know or care? You were born into
my House, and at the appointed time I shall come for you."

"When is the appointed time?" said Leo, stepping back from the
restless movement of the mouth.

"When the full moon fails to call the full tide," said the Crab, "I
shall come for the one. When the other has taken the earth by the
shoulders, I shall take that other by the throat."

Leo lifted his hand to the apple of his throat,