"The soul!" echoed the Master contemptuously; "the most execrable
imposture with which the world has ever been befooled! For the body's
torment a tyrant was invented to chastise it by means of fasting and
renunciation, thus to reduce it to desperation. The soul, sir, is
simply a tyrant that forces its monstrous feelings on the body. And we
are to suffer thus merely because that tyrannous fiction comes from
above--from Heaven, and the body from beneath--from Hell! But how if
it were to occur to the body that it is really the master and the
other the slave, and the soul were to be trodden under foot?"

"Sir, your dogma seems to me perfectly frightful!" said Herr Waimoener
aghast.

"I prosper well enough under it, however. My whole confession of
faith, indeed, is contained in these words: 'That which is agreeable
to me is right; that which is hurtful to another is not wrong.'"

"Sir, do your companions all practise this religion also?"

"I preach them no other, and they appear quite content with it."

"Have you a family also?" asked the clergyman anxiously; "I sincerely
trust not."

"Oh yes," answered the Master lightly. "There dwell with me both a
female anthropopithecus and an undeveloped specimen of the _simia
anthropos_, _masculini generis_."

"And what religion, pray, do you teach your son?"

"The same that I have just enunciated."

The reverend gentleman raised his hands in righteous horror. Then,
after fervently murmuring the first lines of Luther's hymn, "A safe
stronghold our God is still!" he rose to go.

"Farewell, sir," said he. "Never again can I come here. When I reach
home I shall at once make a representation to our authorities to
compel you to build up your exit on the island side, so that you and
yours may never come forth to trouble and contaminate our people."

"Fear not, friend," said the Master, calmly and emphatically. "We
never shall go out to trouble you; but it will not be long ere you
come here to us. Listen! In this very year a famine will visit your
island. I have learnt as much already from those demons of mine. Ay,
and your people will come crawling on their knees to me who possess
the power to turn the rocks into bread, and they will sing 'Hallelujah
Satanas!' in chorus."

The clergyman pulled his gown over his ears in order to shut out such
blasphemy, and rushed precipitately down stairs and out at the lower
door. Never again had he the least inclination to pay a further