a-zi went
presently to the Lord of the Dynamos and whispered, "Thou seest, O
my Lord!" and the angry whir of the machinery seemed to answer him.
Thereafter it appeared to him that whenever Holroyd came into the
shed a different note came into the sounds of the dynamo. "My Lord
bides his time," said Azuma-zi to himself. "The iniquity of the
fool is not yet ripe." And he waited and watched for the day of
reckoning. One day there was evidence of short circuiting, and
Holroyd, making an unwary examination--it was in the afternoon--got
a rather severe shock. Azuma-zi from behind the engine saw him
jump off and curse at the peccant coil.

"He is warned," said Azuma-zi to himself. "Surely my Lord is
very patient."

Holroyd had at first initiated his "nigger" into such
elementary conceptions of the dynamo's working as would enable him
to take temporary charge of the shed in his absence. But when he
noticed the manner in which Azuma-zi hung about the monster he
became suspicious. He dimly perceived his assistant was "up to
something," and connecting him with the anointing of the coils with
oil that had rotted the varnish in one place, he issued an edict,
shouted above the confusion of the machinery, "Don't 'ee go nigh
that big dynamo any more, Pooh-bah, or a'll take thy skin off!"
Besides, if it pleased Azuma-zi to be near the big machine, it was
plain sense and decency to keep him away from it.

Azuma-zi obeyed at the time, but later he was caught bowing
before the Lord of the Dynamos. At which Holroyd twisted his arm
and kicked him as he turned to go away. As Azuma-zi presently
stood behind the engine and glared at the back of the hated
Holroyd, the noises of the machinery took a new rhythm, and sounded
like four words in his native tongue.

It is hard to say exactly what madness is. I fancy Azuma-zi
was mad. The incessant din and whirl of the dynamo shed may have
churned up his little store of knowledge and his big store of
superstitious fancy, at last, into something akin to frenzy. At
any rate, when the idea of making Holroyd a sacrifice to the Dynamo
Fetich was thus suggested to him, it filled him with a strange
tumult of exultant emotion.

That night the two men and their black shadows were alone in
the shed together. The shed was lit with one big arc light that
winked and flickered purple. The shadows lay black behind the
dynamos, the ball governors of the engines whirled from light to
darkness, a